The Operator

  Determination pulled Harmony’s brow tight. “Both. With all due respect, sir. You’re full of shit.”

  Lips quirked in amusement, Steiner turned to Peri. “Come see me when you feel the desire to talk about your loyalties, Ms. Reed. I’m guessing you’re going to need your next fix in about . . . twenty hours?”

  “Son of a bitch,” Allen swore softly, and a wave of heat took her. She could escape, right now, but if she had to draft to do it, she’d likely wipe out hearing Steiner say he knew she was hooked. Peri’s palms grew moist. She had to wait, play along until the realization and the knowledge of what she had to do was deep enough in her past that she wouldn’t forget it. But they were close to WEFT’s gates. It was going to be tight.

  Finding confidence in her silence, Steiner tapped Harmony’s ID against his long hand and tucked it away. “You let yourself be used, Agent Beam. You are officially done.”

  “Are you firing me?” Harmony said, aghast.

  “That depends how well I can spin this to my superiors.” Still standing, Steiner turned to look out the front window at the back gate a quarter mile ahead, his expression sharp in the white light that bathed the area. “As of now, you’re off task. Take a few weeks’ vacation.”

  Allen leaned into her, his ice pack in his hand ready to throw. “Peri . . .” he whispered, knowing she had to go, knowing her dilemma of not wanting to draft herself into ignorance.

  “Tell Harmony this was not my intention,” she whispered, her eyes on the feet of the guard across from her. Her breath came fast as she held her need to move.

  Eluding the CIA was primary. She couldn’t allow herself to be taken. The hole she used to escape her cell would be plugged by now, and the CIA had only had a week of Evocane. LB had that much, and she could use that week to kill Bill, because whereas with a little effort she could evade the CIA for as long as she liked, Bill would be a problem. Bill would never give up on her. He had to die or she’d never be free.

  Peri’s pulse quickened as they passed the last of the autonomous light-manufacturing plants. The road dead-ended just ahead; a new WEFT sign had been glued over the old Opti logo. Kill Bill? She didn’t know whether she could do it. It was more than their shared past. He was an anchor. If she made one mistake, he would force her to draft and artificially wipe her back where she’d do whatever he wanted and think it was her idea. But what if she could get someone else to do it?

  “Peri,” Allen whispered. “You have to go. Now! Before you get behind the gate.”

  A smile quirked her lips as she looked past Steiner to the back entrance, brightly lit to look like noon. True. But she got second chances, and she nodded, wanting to move but waiting.

  Michael wasn’t that far from the neurotic, paranoid man Bill had pulled from the psych ward, mistrustful and easy to manipulate. If he thought Bill betrayed him, Michael would kill him before coming to find her, and then she’d only have to kill Michael. All she had to do was tell Michael the truth, that Bill never intended to accelerate him. And with Bill dead, she could vanish. As long as she remained unaccelerated, she could kick the Evocane. She’d only had two doses. How bad could it be?

  “Peri,” Allen muttered, anxious and ready to help. Bringing him with her would be impossible, and she fought the urge to give him a chaste kiss good-bye.

  “Thank you,” she said instead, voice throaty as the need to be gone warred with the knowledge she might never see him again—and that even knowing that, he would do everything he could to help her disappear.

  “Whoa, look at that,” the driver said, and Peri’s head came up as he slowed in response to the van swerving ahead of them. It righted itself before slowing at the reinforced gated lock across the road, making her wonder whether Jack had tried something last-ditch that hadn’t worked. The driver’s radio crackled to life, laughter and the sound of Jack’s pained grunts spilling out before Steiner smiled and relaxed.

  Her eyes on the self-satisfied man, Peri gave Allen’s cold hand a squeeze, seeing his good-bye in his eyes. “Give me a count of forty-five,” she whispered, and Allen casually leaned back, his hand slipping away as he looked over the van. In forty-five seconds, she would draft. It would put her on the right side of the gate, her plan to manipulate Michael into killing Bill still in her mind even if she lost the time between. Anything after this point, though, would likely be lost.

  One: Peri carefully watched the guard across from them, feeling in her imagination the smoothness of the Glock’s butt in her grip, how it would feel to fire it, kicking back with the scent of spent gunpowder. The van eased to a halt under the lights. Voices grew loud, and the clatter of the opening gate was harsh as Steiner cleared them. She felt powerful and broken at the same time, knowing she could get out of this, but without an anchor to bring it back, that she’d never remember how she’d done it.

  Ten: She stifled a shudder when the scanner went over them, front to back, and everyone’s badge briefly lit at the ping. Her foot would take out the guard, and her fist would bring down Steiner. The driver and second guard would be shot, but not fatally. Harmony . . .

  Oh, God. She’ll think I’m betraying her.

  “I want them both in ankle cuffs the instant we hit the yard,” Steiner said as they inched forward and the security gate slid shut behind them. They were within WEFT’s fences, and she smirked when Steiner relaxed, clearly thinking there was no way out.

  “Sir,” Harmony protested as the van pulled to a wide security door and stopped. Six men in snow-camo coats waited under the harsh security light. Five went to the van where Jack was, a loud commotion rising when the van’s wide back door swung open. Beside her, Allen quietly hyperventilated, guessing how this was going to go down and bulking his oxygen up.

  Thirty: She sat unmoving when their side door rattled open and Steiner swung out onto the pavement. She could hear shouted demands for Jack to get moving. “Sir!” Harmony launched herself out of the van after Steiner, her loud protests echoing off Opti’s thick walls.

  “Out. Now,” the guard across from her said, and she stood, remembering where he had been sitting and how it would feel when she launched herself at him in about fifteen seconds. She held a hand to Allen, and he eyed her from under a low, pained brow.

  “For what it’s worth, thank you for coming for me,” he said, his voice soft with guilt.

  “Thanks for saving my ass in St. Louis,” she said, and he smiled, fitting his hand into hers, cold from the ice pack and knobby. He groaned when she pulled him up and they made their way to the opening. Moving slow and careful, Allen held on to the van as he lurched to the salt-stained asphalt.

  “Five seconds,” he whispered, and her pulse quickened.

  She looked across the fenced-in yard to where Jack was being manhandled out of the van. Counting the original four guards in the van, there were now nine men circling him to her one, and she laughed at how badly they misjudged her. Cool steel glinted in the security light, and she looked up, her breath obscuring the few stars that made it through Detroit’s light pollution.

  “Not another word, Beam!” Steiner exclaimed, his implacable calm finally cracking.

  Ticked, Harmony stalked to the wide door being held by another agent, an irritating whine of an alarm obvious. She vanished inside, and a knot of worry tightened. Three seconds?

  “You don’t have to push!” Jack complained, and Peri’s eyes flicked up. She froze as their eyes met and Jack, his hands cuffed before him, made a “well?” gesture. Peri froze. Does he think I’m going to save him, too?

  “Detroit!” Steiner shouted, clearly cold as he stomped toward the doors in his light WEFT jacket. “If I wanted to work at the North Pole, I would have signed up to be one of Santa’s helpers! My God! Why is it so cold? Who knows where my office is?”

  “Now, Peri.” Allen took her hand. “I’m going to miss you.”

  But she couldn’t look away from Jack, hating his crafty, knowing look.

  “Tell Harmony I’m after M
ichael,” she whispered, his hand slipping from hers when the guard behind them gave her a shove. “And to not find me. And Silas that . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Go,” Allen whispered. “Or you’re going to miss your window!”

  As if somehow knowing, Steiner turned, his face suddenly slack as he stood in the doorway. But it was too late, and giving in, she flipped him off, smiling as he bellowed for someone to down her. He had forgotten drafting worked backward, and it was going to cost him everything.

  Reaching out with her mind, she found a still-point of distraction, forty-five seconds in the past. Her breath came in, and she used it to expand her reach, wrapping her psyche around a three-block area. She could go wider, but she didn’t need to. Eyes opening, she watched the light spilling from the hot flood lamps drop an inky blue to hit the ground and billow up until it dissipated through the world and everything stopped.

  For a scintillating instant, she saw the world: Allen’s grief and worry, Steiner’s anger and frustration, the guards’ confusion . . . and Jack’s confident pleasure that she was going to save his ass again.

  This is not for you, she thought, and then the blue sparkles flashed, obliterating everything.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Whoa, look at that,” the driver said, and Peri lurched, catching her balance as the van holding Jack swerved. They were back outside WEFT. The only people who would know they were rewriting time were she, Allen, and Jack. Her pulse hammered as her plan held firm. She was going to manipulate Michael into killing Bill. She had a week to do it if she could slip WEFT and reach LB.

  Her eyes went to Allen, his hand still in hers, cold from that ice pack. “Take care of yourself,” he said, and then he bellowed, throwing himself at Steiner standing in the aisle.

  The man cried out in shock as he went down, falling in between the two front seats.

  She moved, her foot slamming into the rising guard to send him flailing back to smack his head against the wall of the van. Peri lurched into him, using her elbow to send him crashing back again, this time falling unconscious.

  “Peri!” Harmony exclaimed, wide-eyed as she tried to stand, falling when the van swerved wildly.

  Peri’s hand was already on the guard’s Glock, and she ripped it from his slack fingers. “Steiner knows. If I go behind those walls, I’m never coming out.”

  “We’re in a draft?” Harmony said, and then she became angry. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t tell him.”

  “Look out!” the driver shouted, and Peri fell as the van swerved to avoid crashing into the vehicle ahead of them. Pain lanced through her knee as she hit the floor, and she ignored it. Her grip tightened on the Glock, refusing to let go even as the van lurched to a stop. Eyes wide, she watched out the front window as Jack’s van careened into one of the trees strategically placed to line the drive to the gate. Muted gunfire sounded from inside it, and their driver reached for his sidearm.

  “Firefight!” the driver said, reaching for the door even as he turned to look behind him for permission to leave, his eyes widening as he saw the guard out cold and Steiner down under Allen. He scrambled to bring his weapon to bear, then froze as his buddy in the front seat already had, Peri’s Glock pointed at his head.

  “Not happening,” Peri said, still on the floor, and she shot them both in the arm.

  The twin pops and kicks jolted her. Adrenaline was a sweet drug, and she rolled, knee throbbing, to the sliding side door. As the men in the front howled, she opened the door and slid to the ground. Guards were coming out of the nearby gatehouse, and they all had weapons.

  “Peri!”

  She turned at Allen’s demanding call, and he threw a phone at her. She caught it, feeling the warmth of the guard he’d taken it from.

  “Call me,” he mouthed, pantomiming a phone with his thumb and pinky, and then he went down under the two guards she’d shot in the arm. “Go!”

  Grimacing, she ran for the surrounding trees, her knee throbbing as she fired into the air to keep everyone where they were. She was free and moving. For the moment. Not a sound came from Jack’s van as she passed it, and she wondered whether she wished he was dead.

  “Someone get her! Beam!” Steiner bellowed from inside the van, and Peri dodged behind the trees lining the road, headed for the nearest industrial building and the cars in the lot, praying the men in the guardhouse were not good shots. It was a good half mile. Not fast enough, she mused. A gun fired, muffled from the van, and she hesitated. Allen.

  But then she heard him screaming obscenities, and relief spurred her on. “Go! Run!” Allen shouted as he stumbled out of the van and was downed by the first guard to reach him. Steiner lurched into the van’s door, his face ugly in anger.

  “Shoot her! Bring her down!”

  Peri zigzagged into the thicker cover of the trees, hearing branches break from bullets.

  “Peri!” a familiar voice called, and she stumbled, her heart seeming to stop as she turned, arm shaking as she pointed her Glock.

  It was Jack.

  He was free, a rifle beside him as he knelt behind a tree and used a paper clip to unlock his cuffs. She froze, the sound of men organizing behind her meaning nothing. And then he tossed his hair out of his eyes, smiling up at her as his cuffs came free and he stood, rifle in hand.

  Emotion plinked through her, anger at his betrayal, anger that she’d loved him, anger that not all of those feelings were dead. That he was not a hallucination left her unexpectedly scrambling. He was real, from his torn and dirt-smeared suit to his too-thick stubble, and she was suddenly scared. I don’t love him. You can’t love someone you don’t trust.

  “I wouldn’t have shot you in the back if you hadn’t turned it on me,” she whispered, her arm holding the Glock falling, and his smile became quirky as he ran his eyes up and down her in assessment.

  “Isn’t that the truth. Are you hit? Can you run?” he asked, his attention lingering on her knee, now sporting a bright red as something bled out. Even so, she nodded, almost in shock as his fingers circled her wrist and he pulled her into motion, headed for the nearest manufacturing building. Behind them, the sound of men grew loud. “Thanks for the draft. It was exactly what I needed, when I needed it. Damn! I miss working with you. Right like clockwork, almost as if we’d planned it.”

  This is so bad for my asthma, she thought. “I didn’t draft to help you,” she said, but her gaze went to the two vans as more gunshots rang out. Allen was fighting, buying her time.

  “That’s what you say, but you did what you did.” Jack tugged her into a run, aiming for thicker trees. “I can help. I know things. Where you stash your car, the safe house that you made and probably don’t remember.”

  “You stay away from my Mantis,” she said, making it a threat. The beautiful thing could change color by altering the current running through the solar-panel paint that charged the batteries that ran it. They were illegal outside of Detroit because of the color-changing ability, but most cops didn’t know that.

  But Jack only laughed, his pace slowing as they found deeper cover. “You might not need me, Peri, but I have things you do need.”

  “No!” She jerked her wrist from his grip and halted. “I’m not going back to Bill. Not with you, not ever.”

  “Good God, woman, I’m trying to get you out of here,” he said, but she wasn’t buying it. She could feel time beginning to mesh, the first tendrils of thought and action starting to echo within each other in her mind like two radios a millisecond apart.

  “Stay out of my head,” she threatened, bringing her Glock up to bear on him, and he dropped back, hands up. “I mean it!” she screamed, frantic that she was going to lose everything—again. “I should just shoot you right now! You stay out of my head!”

  “I’m not going to wipe you!” Jack exclaimed, his expression more angry than scared. “God, woman. I’m not here for Bill. I’m here for me.”

  Her arm holding the Glock shook, and then time meshed, m
ended itself with the quiet hush of feathers falling.

  Peri looked up, panic icing through her as the faint light from the distant gate flashed an old-blood red and then cleared. She was on the right side of the gate, her back against an old street tree. It was dark, cold, and she was pointing the guard’s Glock at Jack.

  “I didn’t touch your mind,” Jack said impatiently, and she knew he was real, not her imagination. “I’m here for you, not Bill.” His eyes pleaded as he held out a hand. “You drafted to get us free of WEFT. I can explain, but I’d rather get out of here first.”

  She lowered the Glock. “I didn’t draft to save your ass,” she said, and he grinned.

  “See? I didn’t touch your mind,” he said, and a flash of memory came and went, too fast to be identified outside of a sensation of having done something extraordinary and daring. Her pulse slowed. He hadn’t touched her mind.

  Her shoulders eased, and with a sudden realization, everything up to the gate came back with a painful clarity. Steiner knew she was hooked on Evocane. Michael had to kill Bill for her or she’d never be free of him. How she ended up with Jack was lost, but Michael would believe Jack before trusting her. “I need your help,” she whispered, hating herself as much as it was true.

  “Damn right you do. Let’s go.”

  She was still herself, and the relief of that made her pliant as she fell into old patterns and let him angle them to the bright lights of the nearby manufacturing plant. The sound of a chopper warming up drowned out the calls of men. She had done it. She’d gotten free. With Jack?

  She looked behind them. Both vans were before the open gate, one smashed into a tree. “Did you kill everyone in the van?”

  “Yep.”

  She hated his matter-of-fact attitude. Something told her it was a long-held complaint, even if it had probably saved her life—again. “What about Allen?”

  Jack turned to her. “If you wanted Allen dead, you should have shot him yourself.”

  “Did you kill him?” she exclaimed, and Jack’s expression soured as he understood her thinking. “Is he alive?”