"Yes. Can I help you?"
That encouraged her. "I'm Abigail Blanton. I, uh, am calling because we're related. We have the same mother."
"Really?" He sounded surprised and curious but pleasant.
"Do you know who your mother is?"
"Sort of. I have photos. She died when I was born."
He'd been as lied to as Abbie had. Was their biological father some kind of heartless bastard or what? He might be worse than she suspected. "Your mother's not dead." Yet.
When her brother didn't speak, Abbie rushed on. "None of us knew you existed. I just found records of your birth. You and I were born--"
Hunter touched her arm. She understood the warning to share as little as possible and nodded before going on. But she was desperate. "We were born at the same place. I never met our father. Did you?" She still didn't hear her brother. "Are you still there?"
"I'm sorry. I'm just in shock. No, I never met my father. I was told my mother died in childbirth so I ended up in an orphanage."
All she'd learned about her biological father from the Kore files was that his initials were S. J., but she didn't need records to figure out she'd been lucky not to know him. That didn't erase a bazillion questions she had for her mother. "I'm so sorry. You have family, more than you realize, and--"
"I hate to cut you off, because I'd really like to talk to you more, but I'm due to take a conference call in a few minutes. I work out of my home. I'll be around this afternoon. If you'll give me your number I'll call you back."
"Are you in Chicago at..." She gave him the street address Hunter showed her on the handheld computer.
"Yes... how did you know that and how did you find my phone number?"
"It's a long story and I'll be happy to answer questions if you'll let me come by to see you." Please say yes.
"You don't have a cold or anything, do you? My resistance to germs is not the best, which is why I work out of my home. I have weak lungs and have to be careful not to expose myself to a lot of people."
"No, I'm perfectly healthy." She tried not to sound like a panicked stalker, but she had to see him today. "I can be there in thirty minutes. Just a short visit, okay?"
"I suppose that will be all right. Call when you get downstairs and I'll clear the security so you can come up."
Abbie hung up feeling like a huge weight was beginning to lift from her chest. Hope was taking the place of fear. She handed the phone to Hunter, so excited she wanted to hug him and hating the fact that she hesitated. "You heard. He's going to see me when I get there."
Hunter pocketed his phone. "I hope he agrees to help your mother."
She knew the word "today" was at the end of that sentence in Hunter's mind. She understood that he had an important job of some sort to do, but she had to get her brother to help.
No matter what it took to convince him.
Chapter Forty
Linette had six more steps until she could get inside her office and shut the door.
She'd been given the time for the bombing. Saturday--tomorrow--at 2200. She'd asked if that was Eastern Standard Time and Vestavia said he'd been told it was, but he hadn't sounded convinced.
No information on the city yet, but Vestavia expected to have that in time to get his people on the ground at the bomb site. What did Vestavia want his people to do once they arrived on-site if the bombs were already set?
Would his people detonate the bombs?
Vestavia always made her feel like she had to check to see where she stepped. He kept her on edge, particularly with this project. Might just be feeling jumpy because she'd never been included at this level.
Inside her office, she locked the door and sat down at her desk, excited and terrified. She wanted to share as much as possible with her online contact, whose group had proven they put her information to good use. But if Vestavia was telling the truth, that he was only sharing certain details with each of his three lieutenants, would he be able to figure out that the information passed along had came from her?
Or would he think someone connected to Bardaric had tipped off the FBI or a domestic defense organization?
She lifted her hands to the keyboard. A movement stopped her. The doorknob turned slowly, then the door opened.
Basil walked in grinning. One cheek pooched out with the caramel candy he sucked on. "Ready to buddy up some? I'm the one in the know."
"No thanks."
He closed the door, then sidled across the room and leaned two hands down on her desk. His sickeningly sweet breath breezed across the short distance separating them to nauseate her. "I don't think you realize just how unforgiving Vestavia is," Basil said.
"I believe I know the Fra just fine."
"I don't think so, little girl. You've never seen what he's capable of."
She had the urge to tell Basil stories of her time with the older Fra she'd bet would turn even a strong stomach, but she sat still with her robotic mask in place, though nothing deterred him.
"When I first came into the Fratelli with eight other guys, one of them showed up a minute late for our first exercise in fieldwork. Vestavia wanted to make an example of him. The kid couldn't have been more than twenty-two. He was stripped and stretched spread eagle over a metal grate out in the woods. Vestavia had us build a fire under the kid. He'd been gagged. I swear his eyeballs popped out of his head when we lit the flame. Not a big fire that would engulf him. No, this was a roasting pit, and he was the main dish. We had to stand back a ways when the smell got bad. He lived most of the day until it rained. Buzzards showed up and started ripping into him. He finally died, but it took a while."
"Your point?" she asked in a nonchalant voice. Eating any cooked meat would be difficult for a while.
"Just want you to know what you're risking if you fail him." Basil chuckled and stood up. "I heard worse was done when he was banging Josie. That was one mean bitch."
"I do not wish to discuss the Fra or his associates and suggest you take care what you say."
"Boss is across town at a party schmoozing city officials who think he's their most upstanding citizen. Why'd you think I came by now?"
Her skin quivered with a touch of fear. "Please leave."
"Sure thing. See me to the door." He crossed his arms, declaring he was content to wait.
Linette gritted her teeth and stood up, walking around her desk.
He lunged and caught her arm, yanking her against him.
She shoved her fist between them. "Don't be stupid!"
"Been called a lot of things, babe, but not stupid. Especially since we both know they only promote someone with a genius IQ to lieutenant."
She had no one to back her in a dispute, but he'd been right about her intelligence. She'd figure out a way to stop him from playing with her as if she were a puppet. Or a blow-up doll in his case. "Leave now or you'll regret this."
"Only thing I'll regret is not having planned enough time to take you right here in the office." He reached up and fondled her breast.
She stood perfectly still, not fighting him. "You should take care not to risk angering Fra Vestavia," she warned.
"You wouldn't dare say a word to Vestavia. You complain and he'll yank you off the team and give you to me for sure. The Fratelli would suspect a woman of flaunting herself, even you."
She didn't say a word. Basil was right.
And he was going to be a problem whether the mission succeeded or failed.
Chapter Forty-one
Hunter left the limousine parked a quarter-mile from the address north of downtown Chicago. Abbie had jumped out, raring to go meet her brother. He hoped she could convince her brother to help her.
If not, Hunter had to find her somewhere safe to hide soon.
Things would turn ugly when he encountered BAD.
She wore a suede coat he'd picked up for her in Bloomington, where he'd changed into jeans and a black turtleneck pullover. The down vest he wore was all he needed with the late-afternoon temper
atures hovering in the low fifties.
She surprised him by taking his hand when he reached for hers. They walked along at a quick pace, dodging a woman with a little white dog and another lady with a stroller. When Hunter located her brother's six-story building, Abbie used the phone on the wall next to the entrance to his apartment to call him so he could key the security code to unlock the door.
Hunter kept an eye on the area, but nothing out of the ordinary moved around the quiet neighborhood.
"Hi, it's me." Abbie listened and raised her head to face a security camera, then nodded at Hunter and said, "He's a friend of mine and he's healthy, too."
She frowned, listened, and rubbed her head. She'd had a headache on the way back, but this seemed to be a new headache. "Uhm, let me find out." She covered the phone and turned to Hunter. "He doesn't want anyone else up there but me."
"That's a negative." Hunter eyed the camera, not caring if the guy didn't like what he saw.
"He's sickly. I read in the file he's a hemophiliac," she explained. "I'm just going to go up for maybe ten minutes and come right back down."
"Tell him I'll stand outside the door." That was more ground than Hunter would normally give.
She told her brother, then covered the phone again. "He said he has elderly residents nearby who get upset if anyone lingers in the hallway."
"I'm not letting--"
She cut him off. "I know you've been holding off all day to turn me over to somebody and I do appreciate the trouble this is causing you. I have to talk to my brother now, because the minute you hand me off my mother's dead if I don't make this work. I can't live with missing this chance for her. If you aren't going to let me go up there to see my brother then just kill me now because I will fight everyone to the death who tries to stop me. I need ten, maybe fifteen minutes. If I'm not back down by then, come and get me." She lowered her voice. "I know you can get inside this building."
He wanted to ask her to trust him to know what was best, but she'd throw back in his face that he didn't trust her. The longer they stood outside, the higher their chance of being seen, especially if Gotthard had found the time to search Abbie's file further and find the connection to her brother. "Okay, you go up, but do not go anywhere except up there and don't leave his apartment unless I'm outside the door when he opens it."
"You think I'll run the minute I get up there?"
"No, Abbie. I know you're going to try to convince your brother to go to the medical center right now. If you manage to do that, I don't want you to leave with him because you think I'm going to hand you over to someone. Trust me when I say I'll tell you before that happens."
She didn't say a word.
Hunter put a hand on her shoulder, wanting to keep her right here with him. "Stop looking at me as if I've treated you like that pig did. I just want you safe. I'm not turning my back on you. Dammit. If I could make it happen, I'd take you away with me somewhere I could spend hours showing you how much you do matter."
Her bottom lip quivered. "You have the worst timing."
"I know. I just need you to be careful... for me." He kissed her and thought about shooting his finger at the damn camera, but he didn't. He ended the kiss and whispered, "Hurry up and remember to wait for me to reach his floor before you leave. I'll be standing within ten feet of his door in ten minutes or less."
She looked torn in half, unsure what to do, but she said, "Thank you," then spoke into the phone. "I'm coming up alone."
The minute the door closed and she stepped onto the elevator, Hunter backed away and walked calmly to the end of the building, out of sight of the security camera. When he turned the corner, he ran.
Abbie stepped off the elevator, wrinkling her nose at the suffocating mildew smell. This building had appeared old downstairs, but not this dilapidated. Spiderwebs climbed the wall and trash littered the carpeted hallway.
Couldn't her brother afford a better place? Especially with his illnesses?
She found his door ajar with a note stuck on it that read:
Come on in and walk to my library on your right. Walking strains my asthma.
She pushed the door open and squinted at the dark living room that smelled like the hallway, but a light shined from a room fifteen feet to her right. "It's me, Abbie."
When she'd taken two steps inside the living room, the front door shut as though kicked and someone strong grabbed her arms, twisting them behind her.
"What are you doing?" she yelled.
One hand held both her wrists. Cold fingers wrapped her neck. "Hello, sister."
She tried to think past the slamming of her heart. "You're scaring me." Was her brother some kind of freak?
He didn't say anything.
Why hadn't she insisted on bringing up Hunter? "Who are you?"
"The only person who can save your mother."
"She's your mother, too." Abbie's words tripped over her tongue on shaky breaths.
"Details, details. I'm only interested in negotiating."
"You know about her... that she's sick? So you know who I am?"
"Of course I do, sister."
She cringed at the sound of the word sister coming out in a taunting voice. "What do you want?"
He ran the back of his hand along her cheek and down across her breast.
Please don't let him want that.
He whispered, "I'm going to let you choose."
"Between what?"
"Who lives and who dies."
Hunter needed tools, something he could use to activate the power-operated lock on the gate constructed of crisscrossed metal. Abbie's brother had picked an apartment with decent security, but nothing really challenging... if Hunter had tools.
His phone buzzed and he considered not answering, but Gotthard was the only one helping him right now. He pulled his phone out in one hand and kept searching for a way into the parking garage while he spoke quietly. "Yes."
"Still working through all the records, but Rae broke the coded file with the ten males that were designated for training. I've cross-referenced everything I've got so far."
Someone cranked a car engine on the bottom garage level.
Hunter squeezed between a hedge and the concrete wall that surrounded the parking area. "What'd you get?"
Gotthard said, "We ran the data on all ten boys and found a Kore file showing updates every two years. The nine students who died have been noted as deceased. The last one is still counted as living. That's our JC killer."
The car inside the garage drove to the exit, activating the electric gate, then passing through and speeding away. Hunter shot out from where he hid and jogged toward an exit door marking the stairwell.
"Joe's using this new information to find out if the JC killer was with MI6 or still is. While we're waiting on that, I ran his profile through our computer and got a hit... from the rest of the Kore files."
"Makes sense he'd be in the test files." Hunter opened the door to the stairs carefully.
"Not what I mean. I found a family tie to him. His name in the secret files is Royce Jack."
Hunter had started quietly up the stairs and froze.
Abbie's brother's was J. Royce. No. Can't be.
"He's got the exact blood type and matching physical characteristics as a male child by the same woman who birthed Abigail Blanton. Her brother is the JC killer."
And Abbie was in her brother's hands.
Hunter took the stairs two at a time.
"We went through Abigail's records from Kore."
"She's not fucking involved," Hunter said in sharp whisper even though he was now banging steps to get to her as fast as he could. He'd made it up two floors. Three to go. Abbie needed her brother for her mother, but Hunter wanted the bastard's blood.
Shouldn't take long to get it from a hemophiliac.
"What I'm talking about is Abigail's medical file from yesterday and last night. I'm going to assume you know she coded at Kore."
Hunter grunted rather
than waste breath he needed to race up two more flights of stairs. He would catch that bastard and hand him over to Joe in trade for clearing Abbie out of this mess.
Gotthard continued. "That's because Abbie's white-cell count dropped severely after giving blood. We compared it to her mother's medical files and there are similarities."
"Tell me all this later. He's a hemophiliac. Going to be tough to take him down without making him bleed, but I'll do it." Hunter stuffed the phone in his jeans pocket, freeing his hands as he reached the top floor.
He thundered down the hallway.
Why worry about noise? The prick had to know he was coming. Hell, the door was ajar.
Hunter burst into the room. "Where is she?"
No one answered... because the apartment was vacant.
Chapter Forty-two
Hunter exited the elevator that had dropped two levels below ground into BAD's mission headquarters beneath downtown Nashville. He followed Korbin, his silent escort, who led him to the mission room.
Gotthard, Rae, Carlos, and Retter stood or sat around a black acrylic conference table.
"Told you I was coming in. Think you needed all these to lock me up?" Hunter asked Retter.
"No," Retter said, beefed-up arms crossed over his black T-shirt and long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. "I could handle bringing you in on my own. You did save me the trouble of hunting you. So I'm going to give you a choice."
Hunter quelled his normal reflex to slam anyone who thought they could actually outmaneuver him in the field. He had one concern and that was getting Abbie back. "What's my choice?"
"We can put you in lockdown right now or you can help with this mission."
"Easy choice."
"Not through." Retter continued. "When we finish this mission, you come in without any trouble to meet with Joe and Tee. Up to them what they want to do with a renegade."
"Renegade?" Hunter scoffed. "You guys not allowed to say asshole anymore?"
Gotthard's eyes twinkled, but he didn't smile.
Rae and Carlos kept their reactions contained. No surprise there.
Korbin didn't hold back his black glare.
"If you don't come in without trouble," Retter went on, "we'll lock up Blanton forever, then we'll find that snitch Borys you keep hidden and hand him over to the CIA."