“What the hell do you mean they got away?” Williams was livid. He had been glowering at the destroyed equipment and dead soldiers at the make-shift base near the Winter’s yellow house on the hill in Cairo. What should have been a smooth, surgical attack had exploded in his face—literally.
His limousine pulled up beside him and out stepped Stanley Marks who moved to open the door for the Director. Just inside the limo was Dr. Percival Chaunders. His fat, greasy hands shook as he struggled to measure out a powerful opioid painkiller in a syringe for Williams. Williams had insisted Chaunders come with him to Cairo as his personal doctor. Without his daughter’s restorative blood, the Director’s health was failing much more rapidly than he had anticipated.
“Sir,” Trent Hollier tried to use a calming tone, but he was just as incensed as the Director at the operation’s failure. He was badly burned, but had survived the torching by ducking behind a thick coffee table. “Dr. Winter and half the family escaped. The four remaining were all male, trained and highly formidable.”
Hollier wasn’t just an excellent soldier, he was brilliant, too. Not many others had risen to the ranks of company leader at nineteen. His specialty was his skill with a blade, but he was well versed in all standard issue weaponry.
“Highly formidable? We had fifty metasoldiers! Fifty against four? I want explanations and I want them now!” From just inside the limo, Chaunders flinched reflexively.
Kerry Braden, Trent’s second-in-command, approached with a small stack of papers in his thick hands. Trent nodded to Kerry wordlessly ordering him to a silent, at-ready position off to the side.
“Sir, Kylie Monroe’s intel concerning Evan Winter didn’t prepare us enough. He was the one responsible for the returned fire after the initial RPG.”
Williams narrowed his eyes. What was left of the lids was bloody and torn, pulling away from his bulging eyeballs, but Trent forced himself not to stare at the grotesque effect.
“We were cautioned he could manipulate fire. What more warning did you need, Company Leader?”
“Sir, we had no idea how well he could control it. He killed,” Trent looked down at the report still in his hand, “ten soldiers and left three more severely burned at the perimeter trench.”
“What? I had no idea so many were lost!”
“We chose this site as a tactically offensive position—we didn’t recognize the need for defensive attributes, sir.”
“Continue your report, Hollier.” Dr. Williams spoke through gritted dentures.
“We’re still counting the number of losses at the Winter house.”
“How many soldiers do I have left?” Williams flung his arms angrily, spittle flapping from his foaming mouth. Chaunders ducked further back into the limousine with the still-full syringe hoping to stay out of Williams’ way.
“Thirty-eight soldiers remain, sir.” Trent forced himself to look his Director in the eye when he said this.
“What were their names?”
“Sir, the dead were—”
“No!” Williams barked. “Not the names of the dead. I don’t give a damn about them! They’re no good to me now! I want the names of the four soldiers in the house, Hollier.”
“From photo IDs it’s clear we were fighting Alik and Evan Winter, Cole Andrews and Creed Young.”
“Creed Young,” Williams spat the name. “He defected a year ago—joined the enemy, camp having fallen in love with my daughter.”
“Sir?”
Williams was staring off into space, tapping his fragile flesh at his jawline with the tip of his finger. He only murmured two words: “My daughter—”
“Sir, your operative Kylie Monroe was one of those killed at the house.”
Williams waved his hand dismissively as though swatting away the stench of rancid meat.
Trent worked his jaw, angry that Williams hadn’t even acknowledged the girl whose intel gave them the data they needed to support this strike in Cairo. He was trying to keep it together as the image of her jumping in the path of a bullet haunted him.
Though Kylie only ever saw Trent as a soldier, Trent had wanted so much more from her. He never got the chance to tell her how he felt. Her loss was going to hit Trent hard, once he allowed himself to feel it. For now, this was just business. He had to think of it that way, or put a bullet in Williams’ head himself.
Trent paused at the thought. He watched his Director mutter incoherently to himself and touch the fragile flesh draped over his face like it was a kitten to be stroked.
Williams sickened him. Everything was sickening now that Kylie was gone. He fought the urge to go find her body. He needed to see for himself that she was truly dead.
Just then, Stanley Marks, Williams’ personal bodyguard and manservant, stepped out from behind the limo door, his hand held to his earpiece listening.
“Sir, local police are here sweeping the area. It’s time to leave.”
Williams nodded absently as he turned to step back toward his luxury vehicle. He was still muttering to himself about “his daughter.”
“Sir?” Trent forced himself to get his Director’s attention.
Williams paused and looked absently over his shoulder.
“Sir, what are your orders?”
“We already know they’re headed back to the States. During my meeting with Greg Burns three months ago, I learned so much.” Williams shrugged nonchalantly. “He offered a wealth of information once he was relieved of his eyes. Not only had he told us of Margo’s location here in Cairo, but he also shared their address back in Texas before I tired of his company and had him incinerated.” Kenneth Williams turned back toward his car and started to climb into the back seat but stopped long enough to nod toward his manservant.
“Stanley, give Kerry Braden their Texas address, would you?”
Obediently, Stanley reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and walked it back to a confused Kerry.
“Oh, and Braden. Don’t screw up. You have thirty-seven soldiers at your disposal and one objective: Kill them all.”
“Sir?” Trent looked as if he didn’t know what to question first. He frowned, eyes darting between Williams and Kerry Braden, his second-in-command. Deciding he’d probably misunderstood the Director, he pressed forward. “Thirty-eight soldiers remain.”
The Director nodded to Stanley Marks, who had silently slipped a Beretta from its holster. Before Trent could move to defend himself, metal on metal clicked.
Pop, pop, pop!
Trent Hollier crumpled to the ground, dead.
“You have just been promoted to Company Leader, Kerry Braden. Congratulations. It would be in your best interest not to fail me.” Williams removed his suit jacket, slipped into his car and closed his door on the horrified face of his newest “in command.”
Once inside, Williams turned his attention to the putty-faced Chaunders and the glistening syringe in his fat hands. Williams unbuttoned his cuff and pulled up his sleeve, exposing a vein. He leaned back and smiled at the cold antiseptic cleaning the crook of his elbow and waited anxiously for the sweet relief of pain to follow.
13 Plan B
“We’re still in this, sir.” Adrian Roth, the Senator’s campaign manager, asserted. He knew he needed to produce a plan to salvage the evening’s political loss and he was ready when Arkdone called him foaming and incensed.
“How the hell do you plan to spin this, Roth?” Arkdone’s bow tie hung unknotted around his neck, the first two buttons of his tuxedo undone. He was pacing the room, looking every bit the caged animal. His face was blood red with explosive anger dwelling precariously behind his gritted teeth. He only stopped his pacing to slosh more Scotch into his goblet—his second glass in ten minutes.
“You won twenty-seven percent of the votes tonight, sir.”
“I know. I lost. Do you have a point beyond the obvious?” Arkdone growled.
“We go to the winner, Joe Hawthorne tomorrow and tell him if he doesn’t choose you a
s his vice presidential running mate, you will run against him as an Independent.”
“Go on.”
“You tell him if he doesn’t agree to add you, your Independent ticket will take away that twenty-seven percent from his corner. Essentially, a vote for you would be a vote for the opposing party.”
“How could we be sure we’d get enough of the electoral votes to even make a wave?”
“Oh we would make one hell of a liberal wave, my friend.” Roth was so revved up, spittle was congealing at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t feel it—didn’t care what he looked like. Right then, he was in what he liked to call a “feeding frenzy.” He was on the attack.
“You play up your environmental platform—saving all that beautiful Southern land in your home state of blue-grass Kentucky. You saved the state millions by renovating the historically and architecturally relevant landmark—the mental asylum—and turning it into the modern facility that aids in the psychiatric rehabilitation, research, development and education to the hundreds of inpatients. You take care of the residents with dignity and morality. Every southerner who’s a bleeding-heart, liberal will be chomping at the bit to vote for you as an Independent.” Roth spat directly onto the carpet, his mouth was so full of delicious deviousness. “Hawthorne may not be smart enough to see the ramifications of that, but his people are. They’ll convince him he’d lose the presidential election over this if he doesn’t take you on.”
“Hmmm,” Arkdone responded. He’d stopped pacing and was rubbing the knots from the back of his neck thoughtfully.
“It’s damn good, Donovan, and you know it.”
“Make the meeting happen. Text me when you get confirmation. I’ll need the itinerary.” His voice was sharp with adrenaline.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tonight, Roth. Set this up tonight. I want to shove this ultimatum right up Hawthorne’s gloating ass tomorrow.”
14 Puppet on a String
After hearing the tail end of Arkdone’s conversation on the phone through the door, Meg steeled herself for what she knew would be a heated conversation. Her hand had already been up, poised and ready to knock when she heard the Senator talking. After a deep breath, she allowed herself to rap firmly on the thick door.
“Enter!” Arkdone boomed.
Meg opted for opening the door with her mind instead of her hand. She wanted to show the Senator, she was in complete control of her faculties—and not in the mood for his superior attitude.
She stood in the doorway, hands clasped behind her back, wearing skinny jeans and a form-fitting black tee. Black, knee-high riding boots hugged her shapely legs perfectly. Her hair was still damp from the shower but was braided into a long rope down her back.
“You wanted to see me?” she started innocently.
Arkdone looked up in time to see Meg’s parlor trick. He wasn’t impressed.
“Explain yourself,” he growled. His beady black eyes bored dents into her forehead.
Meg’s mind leaped across all the possible meanings behind that statement. She decided to feign nonchalance and hope to God that he hadn’t somehow sensed her using her psychic manipulative gift on the crowd.
Hands still clasped behind her back, she sauntered into the study shrugging.
“We were at a party.”
“It wasn’t a party for you!”
“What is your problem exactly? I played the part tonight. I let you show me off like a trophy to all your friends. I smiled and made small talk. I behaved exactly the way you wanted me to. So what if I congratulated my performance with a sip or two of wine?”
“A sip or two? You were completely hammered, passed-out and bloody-faced! If Gideon and Ermos hadn’t been there to collect you discreetly, you could have seriously tarnished all my efforts in one swift idiotic move! Hell, it’s possible people noticed but were too polite to say anything to me yet!” His eyes got wilder the more he thought about the possibility. “You may have cost me the nomination!” he bellowed.
The anger on Meg’s face was real enough to mask her feelings of relief that Arkdone didn’t have a clue she really was the reason he lost the nomination, but not because of underage drinking.
“How close was the vote?” she seethed.
Arkdone was running his hands through his slicked back hair, still furious but not sure what to do about it.
“Close.” He frowned, wondering where she was going with that question.
“If I wanted you to lose the nomination—if I had set my sights on that—there is no way I would have allowed ‘close.’ I would have demolished your chances.”
She narrowed her eyes at the man standing rigid beside his mahogany desk. The anger rolling off him was palpable. He said nothing, but looked directly at Meg with venom dripping from the wicked half smirk that peeled across his thin lips. They stood in silence for a full minute, staring each other down. Arkdone finally broke the soundless stalemate.
“Are we in alliance or aren’t we? Tell me now so I can make arrangements,” Arkdone lifted his chin to look down his nose at the formidable sixteen-year-old, openly challenging her.
“We are. You hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll hold up mine.”
Arkdone nodded once. “Tomorrow we are flying to Pennsylvania to have a little visit with Joe Hawthorne.”
Meg cocked her head, forcing herself to show curiosity instead of the acidic panic that leaped into her throat.
“He was the winner of last night’s nomination. You’re going to use your gift to help convince Joe to take me on as his running mate. I may not go into the White House as President, but I will damn well get there as the Vice President. That’s just one small step away from the Oval Office.”
The glint in his eye passed excitement and crazed a few miles back. Now the man was firmly dancing in the land of maniacal frenzy.
Meg could feel the dementia oozing out of his pores and imagining him so close to being the “leader of the free world” made feel physically sick.
Oh hell no, she gasped inwardly.
“We had a deal, Arkdone,” she began, thankful her voice sounded steady, belying her racing heart. Adrenaline hurtled through her body and she had to force herself to breathe through the involuntary need to quiver. She leveled her gaze mustering all the physiological control years of martial arts had taught her. “First you get the Winter Family back to the States. Then, I work for you. In that order.”
Arkdone waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve already made arrangements with our government. The Winters have been granted permission to return without obstruction. They are scheduled to cross the border in two days.”
Two days, Meg’s mind raced. She bit back the happiness she wanted to feel, worried he had just blatantly lied to her.
Using her gift, she mentally eased toward him to try to determine if he were telling the truth. Her emotional fingers reached out to pull aside the shroud where the truth lurked and gasped at the excruciatingly solid mental slap she received from his powerful mind.
Both Arkdone and Meg knew exactly what happened.
He’d sensed her psychic channeling into his mind and had clamped down hard against her. Meg felt a trickle in her nose and nearly rolled her eyes with pain and frustration as she caught the first drops of blood in her cupped hand.
Arkdone sauntered toward her, reaching into his front breast pocket and retrieved a red handkerchief. He held it out to her without a word about what she’d tried to do.
He only raised one brow at the sight of Meg’s nose bleeding as though he had punched her, but Arkdone didn’t miss a beat. He just kept talking.
“So unless you want me to stop their smooth return, you’d better be willing to play the part tomorrow with Hawthorne.”
“I am fully aware of your wishes.” Meg’s dark eyes crackled with hatred for the monster basking in a demonic glow. Meg felt it when she got close a moment ago. His outer façade hid the heart of a power-hungry, narcissistic, calculating monster and she w
anted nothing more to do with him.
Level him, Meg. Do it! she thought. You know you can unleash the hell from which he came by beckoning every living soul in the asylum. They’d come in droves! They’d be a pulsing, mindless knife-wielding, shotgun loading, trigger-caressing mob.
Meg’s fear-induced anger swirled these thoughts of violence through her mind like blood circling a dirty drain.
Calm down, she ordered herself. Now is not the time to rid the world of that cancer. Not yet, and not with a frenzied mob.
Without another word to the Senator’s challenging stare, Meg rolled her shoulders back, took a deep breath through nearly clenched teeth, turned and walked out of the cave-like study. Her head was pounding with the force of bass drums and though she was hurting for it, at least she had confirmed Arkdone was telling the truth about her family before he slammed her brain with his crushing defense.
Two days is two days too late, she thought frantically. Getting Arkdone elected to the White House, even as a Vice President was not part of the plan.
15 Get Out Alive
Meg made her way back to her room, her mind both throbbing with pain and spinning with frantic thoughts of escape. She sensed him before she saw him. Niche stepped from the shadows.
“Oh God, what did he do to you?”
“I’ll be fine. I have bigger issues than a bloody nose.” Meg motioned subtly for Niche to follow her into her suite. He was right on her heels, his hand already at the small of her back. Once inside the room, Meg held her finger to her lips. She stood in the middle of the room, Niche’s hand still holding her back and closed her eyes to concentrate on all the energies in the compound.
She felt the despair from the patients, some of whom were still being “trained” to become Monarchs. Her heart ached for them. She felt Michelle joining Arkdone in his study. Her sticky sweet, fake aura left Meg feeling sickly. She sensed Ermos the chauffer/body guard and Eloise the housemaid going about their nightly tasks. She felt the kitchen help, the “controllers” and other psychiatric doctors and nurses who lived on the compound. She felt the metamonarchs running in a mindless squad around the outskirts of the facility. What she didn’t sense was someone monitoring her via visual or auditory means.
Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) Page 7