Body Thief (15 page)
Authors: C.J. Barry
“Was he alone?” Mercer asked.
The agent said, “No, but the other two got away. He was the only one we could catch.”
“That’s because he let you,” she said.
The agent punched a panel on the wall, and a door slid open. He glanced at her. “What makes you say that?”
“Why do you think the others got away?” she replied and entered the room. The captive Shifter’s clothing was piled on the table, and she went straight for it. A few sniffs and she confirmed that his scent matched one of the groups she’d discovered. The oily mix was there as well, the common link between all of them. She nodded at Mercer. He dismissed the XCEL agent.
The captured Shifter sat in human form on a cot as she stopped in front of the thick glass between them. Mercer moved up beside her. It felt weird as hell being on the other side of the glass, and not in a good way.
The Shifter wore a pair of orange cotton pants and a matching V-neck T-shirt. His head was in his hands, his shoulders hunched.
She tapped on the glass, and he gazed up. For a moment, he was surprised, probably because she was a Shifter. Then he turned red. His face twisted in anger.
“Are you shittin’ me?” the Shifter said, disgust thick in his voice. He got to his feet and walked directly to Cam. “How can you do this to us?”
She stared at him, a bad feeling growing in her gut. Did he know her or was he just pissed because she was a Shifter? That had to be it. Her paranoia was getting the best of her. She blamed it on Harding.
“Why were you stealing the truck?” Mercer asked.
The Shifter ignored him and narrowed his eyes at Cam. “You know what they are trying to do. Or did you forget what happened on Govan?”
“I didn’t forget and this isn’t Govan,” she said carefully. She was still raw from her argument with Mercer this morning, and this was not the place to lose control. In fact, no place was the right place to lose sight of her goal. This was about her father, and if she wanted to save him, she’d keep her focus on that. “Why the truck?”
“Go to hell,” he said to her. And then he turned to Mercer. “And you too. I want a lawyer.” Then he stopped. “Oh, wait. I’m not allowed a lawyer. That right is only given to humans. We don’t qualify.”
She ignored his valid point for the sake of finishing this job and getting as far away from Mercer as possible. “Spare me the crap. We know what you and your teams are up to.”
She caught Mercer’s eyebrows go up in her peripheral vision. They didn’t know anything, but she was a hell of an actor.
The Shifter put his hands on hips and leaned toward her arrogantly. “You don’t know anything.”
Mercer coughed into his hand beside her.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t as good as she thought. Cam leaned forward too. “The question is, why are you doing it?”
The Shifter laughed and turned his back on her. “Like I’m going to tell you anything.” He dropped back on the cot. “Does your father know what you’re doing, Camille?”
And with that, she froze, unable to frame a response. He did know who she was. Granted there were very few surviving female Shifters, but he knew her and her father. How? What did this mean for her father? For this entire mission? If they knew she was working with XCEL—
“That better not be a threat,” Mercer said, interrupting her spiraling line of thought. “Because I’d take it very personally.”
The Shifter laughed. “You and what army.”
Mercer eyed her. “He hasn’t seen you in action, has he?”
Despite the jumble of thoughts and fears vying for attention, she smiled at his respect for her skills. “Apparently not.”
Then the door behind them flung open, and Harding came charging in. He glanced at the Shifter prisoner and shut down the open communication between them. The glass went opaque, the speakers muted, and Harding turned a nice shade of crimson.
“What the hell is going on here?” he said to Mercer through clenched teeth.
“This is one of our attackers. We were asking him a few questions,” Mercer said, staying surprisingly calm in the face of Harding’s wrath. Cam realized that his outburst this morning was the first time he’d let go of that steely self-control. That put her in a category worse than Harding. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
Harding pointed his finger at Mercer. “You don’t ask questions. You do your job, and let us do ours.”
Mercer didn’t back down. In fact, he seemed to get stiller and more focused. Her skin prickled from the wave of intensity that shadowed him. She heard his heartbeat rise, blood rush through his veins. Instinctively, Cam took a step back.
“You don’t want to know if he’s one of our Shifters?” Mercer asked.
“We figured that out ourselves,” Harding snapped. “No thanks to you two.”
“How did you know?” Mercer pressed.
Harding looked as if his head was going to explode. Sadly, it didn’t. He responded, “There are other agents out there with your
affliction
.”
affliction
.”
Cam narrowed her eyes at him. Right now, she’d give anything for laser vision.
“I can replace you,” Harding added. Then he turned on her, and all her senses sharpened, ready for battle. She was in no mood for his crap.
Harding said, “But they know you.”
Sonofabitch. He might not want them interrogating the captive, but he’d heard the conversation; he was probably listening the whole time.
“Gee, I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” she said, donning Mercer’s super-calm tone.
“You want your father back?” he said, menacingly. “Then you’ll make contact with them. You’ll offer to come in, talk to them, whatever it takes to find their location.”
She could barely hold the words together, she was so furious.
Then he pointed at her and Mercer in turn. “Do not tip them off. You pass along the location, and we will take it from there.”
Mercer said, “Yes, sir.”
Cam heard the softness in his voice, the dangerous edge that it teetered on. Harding, of course, missed it completely.
Satisfied with being the biggest asshole in the room, Harding hitched his head at the Shifter. “And you make it fast, because if we get their location of operations out of this Martian—”
Cam felt a growl rumble in her throat.
“Then both of your deals are off,” he finished.
She was about to tell him to shove it when Mercer stepped between her and Harding. She didn’t need to see his face to know he was livid. His soft tone said it all.
“We all agreed to the deal,” Mercer said evenly.
“The deal was
if
you succeeded.”
if
you succeeded.”
Cam felt the tension increase in the small room with every passing second. Male testosterone thickened as Mercer moved deep into Harding’s personal space.
Harding backed up under Mercer’s advance, all the while trying to keep hold of his dominance. But Cam could smell him beginning to sweat under his suit. Amid the face-off, she realized that Mercer made Harding look like a scrawny weakling, overshadowing Harding by inches.
“And what about Cam? What about her deal?” Mercer said, his voice rough.
She held her breath for Harding’s answer. The director’s face was flushed, but he smiled through it. “Of course, we’ll honor her deal.”
Cam leaned around Mercer. “I want that in writing.”
Harding cut her a glare. “You’re lucky—”
“Don’t start with her,” Mercer said, and took another step forward, driving Harding’s back to the door. “This is between you and me.”
The challenge was not lost on Harding, but he was wise enough not to take it. Instead, he raised his chin and donned a haughty frown. “Your behavior is bordering on insubordination.”
Mercer didn’t say a word as he started taking off his jacket in a slow, deliberate way. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could see the fear grow on Harding’s face. God, it was priceless.
Then Harding wrenched the door open and stepped outside. He stared back at them from the relative safety of the hallway, his arrogance back. “Now get out there and do your fucking job.”
The door slammed shut in their faces.
“Prick,” she said under her breath. “He deserves to die in some horrible way that involves castration and torture.”
“He will,” Mercer said.
Cam eyed him. He was lost in a deep, dark thought that was more than a little scary. “He’s probably listening to us now,” she noted.
Mercer’s gaze cut to the camera mounted in the corner. “I hope so.”
Aristotle rocked on his feet as Red delivered the bad news.
“They were waiting for us at the transportation center,” Red said. “They knew we were coming.”
Aristotle absorbed the information and what it meant. XCEL was either very lucky or they had a line on his activities. A spy perhaps in his operation? He’d chosen each member of his team himself and trusted them to follow him to the grave. He couldn’t imagine any of them betraying him.
“They got Mitchell. He held off XCEL so the rest of the team could get away,” Red added. “He won’t talk, but we need to move our meetings. Just to be safe.”
Further disappointment settled over his old body, taking its toll as it always did. Aristotle held no hope for fairness, or anything close to it. He’d abandoned that long ago. Still, he’d hoped for better than this. He drew a deep breath, and then once more, he accepted what he couldn’t change.
Mitchell had sacrificed himself. He was a good man, and there were so few of them left. Not only had he lost a leader, the shipment would be delivered and bring Harding one step closer to destroying all of them.
Not one of his best of days.
“Was Camille there?” he asked.
Red shook his head, his long black hair floating around his head. Today, he was a Latino male, well built and strong. “No, but I’ll bet she’s involved somewhere. That could be how they knew.”
It was possible, and he’d prefer that scenario over a traitor in his midst. Aristotle braced himself against the railing that ran the length of the underground tunnel they stood in. Cold, damp steel made his hands ache. This underground world was harsh on his body. If he could acquire a new, younger form, he would. But those days were over.
“We have to kill Harding,” Red said. “There’s no other way.”
Aristotle shook his head. “Then we become exactly what they think we are.”
“What difference does it make?” Red replied, throwing his hands up in frustration. “They hate us anyway. We’ll never change that.”
“Killing him won’t stop this,” Aristotle persisted. “There will be another Harding. And another. Until they perfect a way to kill us all.”
Red gave a sigh. “It’s hopeless.”
Aristotle put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “The truth will come out. Trust me on that. It always does.” Sooner or later, he added silently. Hopefully, sooner.
“Relocate the meetings,” Aristotle said. “Tell the teams to move their plans along faster, if at all possible. Only the team leaders should know the details. We need to keep XCEL guessing.”
Red nodded. “I’ll pass it along. Anything else?”
The end of the tunnel was pitch-black, at least to a human. But he could see the end perfectly. “Find out where Camille’s father is.”
Red squinted at him. “Why?”
“It’s personal.”
“Suit yourself,” Red replied. Then he said good-bye and left. His footsteps echoed, each one getting fainter.
Soon, silence descended over the tunnel, broken by an occasional rattle of a pipe or random thump from somewhere unseen. Aristotle felt the dampness overtake his skin and seep into his human bones. He closed his eyes and meditated on his existence as he had so many times before. His life was coming to its end; he’d known that for years and kept it hidden from those closest to him. He could feel his cells weaken and fragment, one by one. The process was slow, and not without pain.
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