"Well, they don't have it. Halfway into the mission, I realized it was a setup. I knew they were dangling bait, false bait--I'd read the original data the professors had before they were murdered. A few days earlier, when I was scouting the building, I thought I recognized one of the men on the same floor where I'd been told the data was. It nagged at me that I'd seen him before somewhere, but I couldn't place him. I'd already broken in and had accessed the computer and I skimmed the report and realized it was a fake. That triggered my memory of the man. He'd been a student at the university, just walking by in the hall outside of one of the professor's offices. He had glanced inside the door, and that attracted my attention. He didn't turn his head in any obvious way, but I knew he was looking in. People just don't do that ordinarily, so he stuck in my mind."
Gator rubbed his head. "I'm confused, Dahlia. You spotted this same man in the building where you were scouting to break in?"
She nodded. "But I didn't place him. It's been a year since I was at the university taking a look at the documents."
Sam laughed. "Don't apologize. Most people wouldn't have noticed him, let alone recognized him a year later."
"Well, it would have been a lot safer had I recognized him immediately. Instead, it took me skimming the document and realizing it was a false one as well. For a minute I thought maybe the company had been sold false data, but then I remembered where I'd seen him, and I realized the data was flagged and I'd be having company any minute."
She glanced at Nicolas. Waves of dark energy swarmed around her. "You're getting upset. I'm alive and safe, and it wasn't all that difficult to get out of there. The biggest problem was the research data. I didn't want them to be able to move it. I was fairly certain they didn't have much warning so they couldn't have buried it all that deep. Most people think in terms of protecting a computer, but a really good hacker can get through most computers given the time. I figured they didn't put anything on the computers just because of that. And if I was right, that meant there was only the one copy. And if there was only one copy, they had it locked up tight."
"A lot of assumptions in a short period of time, especially when people are coming after you," Kaden pointed out. "You should have gotten the hell out of there."
"I was fairly certain I could stay hidden. And I also knew I could provide a few diversions. I was more worried about the security system where they had the data. I assumed they'd beef it up and maybe provided a human guard or two. I wish I had your ability to coax someone to look the other way."
Nicolas folded his arms across his chest, his bronzed features an implacable mask. "So you stayed even though you knew it was a trap and you had no backup. Calhoun couldn't have even gotten to you if they'd found you. You saw what they did to him. They would have killed you. You must have known that, Dahlia. They had to be putting out some malicious energy."
She could feel his level of anger rising, a very unusual emotion for Nicolas. If the others hadn't been there, she would have reached out to soothe him, but she felt inhibited by their presence. Inwardly she sighed. She had no idea how to act around other people. What kind of relationship did Nicolas and she really have? They'd slept together. Lots of couples slept together and it didn't mean anything at all.
"Yes it does." Nicolas said the words aloud deliberately, said them between his bared teeth. He said them aloud to show her he was seriously staking his claim. He didn't care how primitive she might think him. She wasn't going to have sex with him and throw him out, damn it. They belonged together. There was law and order in the universe. She wasn't going to turn him inside out and upside down and then toss him out like garbage.
"Stop it!" Dahlia backed away from him to the doorway. "You're acting like an idiot."
The other GhostWalkers exchanged raised eyebrows, clearly not feeling the hostile energy pouring off of Nicolas the way she did. Dahlia didn't understand how they could be so protected.
"Well, now, ma'am," Sam said, scratching his head. "This is the first time I've ever heard anyone call Nico an idiot." He quickly held up his hand for peace when she turned to include him in her glare. "I'd be obliged if you let us in on what's going on. To be honest, no one dares to call him much of anything."
"Why not?" Dahlia flicked a quick look at Nicolas, who leaned one hip against the wall and managed to look lethal just standing there.
"He's a dangerous-looking fellow," Sam pointed out.
"And he's handy with guns and knives and all sorts of other nasty weapons a pretty little thing like you wouldn't want to know about."
Dahlia knew immediately Sam was diffusing the situation, and she was grateful for the instant reduction of energy. She had the impression of a smile in her mind, but Nicolas's expressionless features didn't reflect one.
"Please go on, Dahlia," Kaden prompted with a small warning glance at Nicolas. "What did you do?"
Nicolas's black gaze iced over, but he refrained from speaking.
"I went into my invisible mode and made myself quite small. I can't blur my clothes, so I always note the walls of the places I'm going and try to wear clothes that blend. I can manipulate the surface of my skin, which helps to blur my image somewhat. It allows me to slip past the guards. I hid in a vent while they searched the building. I purposely chose the smallest one I could find so they would overlook it, thinking I couldn't possibly have used it to hide. It was a very uncomfortable couple of hours."
Kaden nodded his head. "Your 'invisible mode' is really more of a chameleon mode, right?"
"Exactly. I've practiced until I can blend into most backgrounds."
Tucker inhaled sharply. "I saw that on the tape during your training. It must come in handy. Wish I could do it."
"Why didn't you just get the hell out of there?" Sam asked curiously.
"I figured they'd move the real data. I was fairly certain they'd check to make certain I hadn't found it and they'd lead me right to it. I wouldn't have to check every box in the vault, and I'd be able to get it and get out fast."
Nicolas paced away from the small group. Dahlia's tales of her adventures were holding the GhostWalkers spellbound, but they made him ill. Nothing and no one had ever affected him as she did. He felt her inside of him. Inside his head, his body, even his heart. It was crippling to a man like him. He had to have a clear head and his body couldn't be tied up in knots, especially around Dahlia. Just the thought of her in such a dangerous situation sickened him.
He took a deep breath, made every effort to clear his mind.
"Nico," Kaden called him back to the group. "If we're going to help Dahlia plan going back in to recover the data, we'll need you on board. You're carrying most of the load, moving the energy away from all of us."
Nicolas glanced at his friend and then back into the murky waters of the bayou. Kaden was carrying a good bit of the load as well. He was every bit as strong an anchor as Nicolas was, and he guarded the other men carefully. He sighed. As much as he liked Kaden, he didn't want his friend to be the one drawing the energy away from Dahlia, or worse, diffusing it with whatever emotion was the most flammable.
He nodded at Kaden. "Don't worry, I'm on board."
Dahlia walked over to him and put her hand on his arm. It was a small gesture, but he knew the cost to her. She wasn't a woman who touched others, and certainly not publicly. His thumb feathered over her wrist. "What did you do?"
"I waited in the vent until I heard them call off the search and then I followed the primary suspect, a man by the name of Trevor Billings. He heads up one of the many departments at Lombard Inc." She named a primary company the defense department often used for building prototypes and weapons. The company was reputed to be heavily guarded and under the tightest of security. "Billings has been a suspect for some time. The NCIS believed he was selling weapons to terrorists and other governments, basically anyone who can pay for them, but they can't prove it. The word is, he has a small army of his own and a couple of senators in his pocket to insure he gets the contra
cts he wants. Jesse believed someone inside the NCIS was tipping him off when anyone came up with new ideas for weapons and Billings was stealing the data before the contracts were given out. That way, he didn't have to pay off his senators and he didn't have to share with anyone. He just creates a couple of accidents for the professor, or whoever happens to think up the idea, and then he claims it belongs to his company and sells it to the government, or whoever is the highest bidder. It's a win-win situation for him."
"It's not a bad idea. If he uses accidents and covers all of the United States, not hitting in the same place too often, he could really have something and no one would be the wiser. People get government grants all the time to think things up. From one end of the country to the other, teachers and students and private corporations seek grants," Kaden mused aloud. "I can see how it would be much more profitable to him to get the data and suddenly come up with the idea himself and then market it."
"Jesse wanted it stopped," Dahlia said. "He wanted proof that Billings had those professors killed, and he wanted the data back."
"Well we certainly wouldn't want to disappoint Jesse, not with your life at stake," Nicolas said. There was a small note in his voice that sent alarms skittering down her spine. There was ice in his eyes and in his veins and his mouth was a merciless slash.
"I take a great deal of pride in what I do. I'd never failed before, and I wasn't about to do so this time." Dahlia wanted to sound calm, but to her horror, she actually sounded as if she were appeasing him and that brought her own temper flaring. Snatching her hand back, she glared at him and paced away from the suddenly smothering group. "I don't have to explain myself to you or anyone else. I stayed to get the job done, that's all." Why did she feel she owed him any explanation at all? No wonder there was a need for a relationship manual. Men were idiots. Supreme idiots, and women were just as bad trying to soothe men's egos.
Nicolas followed her, feeling a fool. He knew part of the problem was the close proximity of so many men to Dahlia. He was still fighting off the feeling of watching her slip through his fingers. Combined with his fear for her safety, he was reacting to the amplification of his own emotions by the very energy he was drawing away from his men and from Dahlia. He sighed. So much for self-discipline and control.
I'm sorry, Dahlia. I really am.
She wanted to stay angry with him. There was a form of protection in staying angry, but the aching sincerity in his voice was her downfall. She took the hand he held out to her. He drew her close to him, so close she could feel the heat of his body through the thin material of their clothing.
"I'm good at what I do, Nicolas. If there's danger, I'm careful to keep it to a minimum. And my size is an advantage. I work at night when most people are already gone. Most of the time, I'm in and out and no one is ever the wiser."
"Dahlia," Kaden said, "you must have to travel. Do you fly? How do you get around the traveling aspect of your job?"
"Private plane. I always use the same pilot. He's ex-military as well and works for the NCIS. He was a Green Beret. Most of the men I've met from the NCIS division were in some kind of Special Forces training." She looked at Kaden. "That's not normal, is it?"
"Are they GhostWalkers, Dahlia?" Kaden asked.
"I have no idea." She shrugged lightly and then pushed a hand through her hair. "Maybe. Maybe that's the connection between them. They all seem to know one another and are close. Max is the pilot, and when I'm with him, I never seem to have problems. We don't talk much, so I didn't give it a lot of thought. He's very quiet."
"Max who?" Kaden signaled to Tucker to bring out the satellite phone to call Lily. The more information they had the better.
"Logan Maxwell. Everyone calls him Max." She watched as Tucker talked into the phone, relaying the information. It amazed her that Lily was on the other end. For so long she didn't know if Lily was a figment of her imagination or if she were real. Now, she was almost afraid to believe in her.
Tucker looked at them, his expression grave. "Someone's been trying to track us. They're using sophisticated equipment to do it. This place might not be safe anymore."
Dahlia felt her heart thud. None of the men looked particularly concerned. They were used to the violence in their world. She took a deep breath and tried to look unafraid. It wasn't so much the terror of having mortar rounds fired at her, so much as the onslaught of the violent energy seeking her out in the aftermath. It seemed such a weakness in the face of the strength the other GhostWalkers possessed.
Nicolas slipped his arm around her shoulders. "How do you contact Maxwell for a ride when you're heading out for a mission?"
"Jesse usually arranges transport, but I also call Henderson's secretary and she arranges it for me. She gives me the location of a small field and a time. Max is always there well ahead of me and ready to take off."
"So let's do that. Call the secretary, what's her name?" Kaden asked.
"Louise Charter. I've never met her face-to-face, but I've spoken numerous times with her on the phone. She's a nice woman."
The men exchanged a long look. Dahlia's eyebrow shot up. "What? You aren't going to tell me that Louise is behind all this. She's close to sixty. She's the widow of an FBI agent."
"We'll see," Kaden said. "Let's arrange for transport to the DC and Maryland area so we can pay a little visit to the agents. I think it would be most helpful to get to know them."
"And dangerous," Tucker pointed out. "If they're GhostWalkers."
"And if they are, where did they come from? Why haven't we heard of them?"
"Calhoun knew about us," Nicolas said quietly. "He recognized my name, and he didn't bat an eye over my talking telepathically to him. He knew."
Dahlia immediately felt the impact of the weight of their combined gazes. "Don't be looking at me. I'd never heard of you. If Jesse knew, he didn't say a word to me."
"Where is the data now, Dahlia?" Nicolas asked point-blank.
"In the vault. I just moved it from one box to another. They have a very secure vault, each of their researchers has access using codes and prints and keys to sensitive materials. I didn't have time to get it out of the building. I was afraid I'd be caught, and I wanted to safeguard it. I thought it was better to let them think I smuggled it out and go back later and get it. So I moved it."
"How'd you get past the security?" Kaden asked.
She shrugged. "I followed them in. It wasn't that difficult. They weren't looking for me and I jammed the cameras. I'd been doing it on and off for days so they thought they had a glitch. No one thought to look in the shadows to see if I was following them. It was more difficult getting out than getting in."
"So now you need to break back into the building and bring the data out before they discover they still have it," Kaden concluded.
"That's about it," she agreed.
"Call the secretary and set up transport, Dahlia," Nicolas said. "We'll go along and make certain things run smoothly. And if we're lucky, we'll flush out the traitor while we're at it."
Dahlia shook her head. "I work alone. I can't work with anyone else. You know that, Nicolas. It's too dangerous."
Kaden laughed lightly. "You obviously haven't worked with the GhostWalkers, Dahlia. The recovery is your job. We're just going to go along to smooth the way. Don't worry, we work well as a unit."
Dahlia hesitated, wondering if they were railroading her. She needed time to think things through before committing herself any deeper into the company of so many others. But somehow, in spite of her misgivings, the phone was in her hand.
"I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do," she pointed out.
"Exactly," Nicolas said.
The men watched Tucker as she talked to Louise Charter. He was carefully looking at the screen of his laptop. "Oh, yeah. We're being traced, people. I've thrown up a couple of smoke screens, just enough to keep them thinking we aren't on to them, but they'll find us. We already know they have a team in the area."
"Or wh
at's left of it," Nicolas said.
"Keep talking, Dahlia, let them get a good fix on us," Kaden advised.
Dahlia scowled at him. She was unused to taking orders and especially not used to allowing enemies to pinpoint her exact location. She was a woman of the shadows, and being in a spotlight was extraordinarily uncomfortable. She looked up at Nicolas. His wide shoulders blotted out the sunlight, so that for a moment, she saw only him. He seemed invincible, a man who would never give up, never stop. She kept chatting with Louise, talking about nothing important, yet counting every second until Tucker signaled to her.
"Henderson wasn't available, which means he was out of the office, or he would have insisted on talking to me. Louise wanted to forward my call to him, but I declined," she explained. "So now what?"
"Now we know someone in that office is hunting you," Kaden said.
"I knew that already. How does that narrow it down?"
"I don't think it's all that easy to bug the NCIS secretary's office and trace a call," Kaden answered. "I'd have to say we need to look very closely at the secretary."
For some reason, the idea that Louise could be the traitor made Dahlia feel sick. She liked Louise. Maybe she didn't know her all that well, but she liked her, and she had contact with very few people. She was beginning to believe most of the world was made up of deceivers. Part of her wanted to remain forever in the shadows. It seemed so much safer there. Out in the open, she was so much more vulnerable. She forced a small smile. "I need a little space. While you all eat, I think I'll take a little time for myself." She didn't look at Nicolas when she said it. She needed space from him as well.
Dahlia went for the roof, the safest place she could think of while she sorted things out. They had little time. Either the NCIS had traced the call to ascertain her whereabouts, or someone else had done so, someone who wanted her dead. Either way, it was more than likely they would have company very quickly. She pressed her hands to her face, forcing the air through her lungs. Her life had been turned upside down in a few short days. She'd had no real time to think, or plan. She just kept moving to stay alive. She hadn't even been able to grieve properly for Milly or Bernadette.
She felt for the familiar comfort of the amethyst spheres in her pocket. She had to focus on the mission. Before anything else, she needed clothing. Everything she owned was gone, blown up along with her home. She'd need to use the money Jesse had stashed in the safe house for clothes. She knew the importance of blending into her surroundings.