Blood Oath (24 page)

“Why would we lose him?”

That stopped Helen short.

“Because—you know their history,” she stammered. “We can’t allow Cade to be this close.”

He looked annoyed. “Please. If Cade wanted to kill Konrad, he could have done it five times already. He hasn’t. What does that tell you?”

“The president hasn’t authorized him to take any action,” she said. Reluctantly.

“Correct,” he said, a teacher rewarding a slow pupil. “So why are you threatening your cover by involving the White House?”

His face revealed nothing more than idle curiosity. Another federal office drone walked between them in the hall, giving them an apologetic look. Helen waited until she was gone.

“Konrad wanted us to do something,” she said.

He took off his glasses and wiped them on his tie. “Do you take orders from Konrad now?”

She flushed. “No, sir.”

“And there’s no reason to believe Konrad is involved in anything that would jeopardize him—or the Company,” he said. “Is there?”

“No, of course not,” she said, too quickly. She tried to keep her face—and her mind—as blank as possible.

He waited for her to say something else, but she kept her mouth shut. He put his glasses back on and nodded at her.

“Then we have nothing to worry about.”

“Cade is screwing with what’s ours,” she snapped. “We ought to put a stake in his heart. Or that kid with him. Just to send a message.”

“We’re not prepared for that kind of fallout.”

Helen sensed a weakness here, and she did what she always did: she pounced on it.

“Maybe
you’re
not,” she said.

He looked at her for a long moment. Long enough that Helen started to get nervous again.

“You think you can handle Cade?”

She opened her mouth, but he raised his hand. “You weren’t with us the last time we killed someone in Cade’s operation,” he said. “The president set Cade out like a mad dog. What do you think would happen if Cade were to tell the president his former aide turned up dead in Los Angeles? We had to cut loose a lot of people to cover our tracks. A lot of people. They found out the hard way they weren’t as valuable as they thought.”

“Is that a threat?”

Her controller looked disappointed. The slow student had taken a step back.

“Of course it’s a threat, you stupid twat.”

She looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He turned away and headed for the elevator. He was done with this conversation.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“You said Konrad isn’t doing anything, right?” her controller said, pressing the button for the elevator. “Then it’s simple. Cade has no reason to be here, once you stop provoking him.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Good girl.” He got inside and the doors closed. Helen knew he’d disappear once he walked out of the lobby.

She bent over, feeling nauseous. Helen was very grateful Konrad was going to make her immortal. Because she was going to betray the Shadow Company, and it had punishments that only started at death. From there, they got much worse.

She took a deep breath and considered her options.

Control suspected her of something, but didn’t know. If he knew, she’d already be dead.

He was watching now. But he was a busy man. She wasn’t the only agent he had to track. The Company would give her plenty of rope to hang herself.

She had to move fast, though.

She went back into her office and hit the intercom.

“Ken,” she said. “I need the activation code for the package.”

“Uh ... okay,” he said. “Are you sure about this?”

Helen gritted her teeth. Was
everyone
going to give her shit today?

“I just got confirmation,” she said, voice steady and clear. “The Company wants Cade off the board. He’s not supposed to be here. The White House will take care of any fallout. They’ll have to.”

Nothing but silence from Ken. Helen rolled her eyes.

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss,” she said. “How many people get a chance to put ‘vampire slayer’ on their resume?”

—BRIEFING BOOK: CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET

Z
ach woke on the bed. He hadn’t reset his watch since D.C., so he had no idea of the time.

He rolled over—and saw Cade standing there. He snapped up, limbs flailing. “Jesus Christ!”

“We’ve talked about that,” Cade said.

Zach eased himself back to the bed. “Maybe it would help if you didn’t loom over my bed while I’m sleeping.”

“I heard you wake up. Your breathing changed.”

“Well. That makes it all better. What time is it?”

“Daytime. Let me know when you’re dressed,” Cade said. “You’ll need to get to the clinic and watch Konrad again.”

“Yes, sir,” Zach muttered.

Zach squinted at his watch again, did the math ... it was barely past ten a.m. He’d been asleep for less than four hours.

With a grunt, he heaved himself out of the bed.

The phone rang. Cade picked up. “What?”

It wasn’t Griff. “Nice manners,” the female voice said. “Rude much?”

The not-DHS agent from the night before: Holt.

“I wasn’t expecting your call,” Cade said.

“Don’t tell me: you’re an old-fashioned guy. You don’t think the girl should call so soon after the first date.” Cade could hear the pride in her voice. No one was supposed to have this number. Her resources surprised him. Again.

But he wasn’t about to rise to the bait. He waited.

“Who is that?” Zach asked. He wandered closer to the phone, grazing from the cereal box again.

Cade gave him a look.

“Fine, sorry, never mind.” He went away.

“Tough room,” Holt said, when it became apparent Cade wouldn’t answer. “I guess I should get to the point. Leave the doctor alone. He belongs to us.”

“And who are you?” Cade said. “You’re not CIA. You’re not Homeland Security.”

“Need-to-know basis, and you are not among the needy. This is about keeping America safe. Surely you can understand that.”

“I’ve heard it before. Usually just before a lot of people die.”

Holt snorted. “You should be more worried about yourself.”

Cade was bored. Sometimes it seemed ridiculous, talking to humans. Their slow thought processes, their short, fragile lives.

“This no longer interests me,” he said. “You said you know me. Then you know I won’t stop. Whatever you’re going to do, you might as well do it.”

“Yeah,” Holt said. “I figured as much.”

Cade heard a tone in the background. The noise of a plastic button being pressed.

He dropped the phone in the same second he realized what was happening. Stupid. Calling during the day. When he was slower. Weaker. When his senses were dulled, down almost to human levels.

When he was less likely to hear a detonator being triggered by a radio signal.

He was moving now, too slow. The phone hung in midair. Zach appeared before him, standing in the doorway. His face registered surprise.

The cereal box dropped out of Zach’s hand, flakes falling in a comet’s tail after it.

“What—” Zach said, before Cade tackled him, picking him up.

He felt a rib in Zach’s chest crack with the impact. Still too slow.

The explosion began at the far wall, sending the concrete ahead of it. Cade could see each piece of rubble break free and take flight.

The steel entry door was locked. No time to open it. No time at all. He kicked it down.

The explosion was at his back now, the blast wave like a giant fist swinging for him. He accelerated. The glass door of the entrance dissolved into fragments.

Blazing daylight, and his speed and strength vanished. The heat caught him on the side, as he did his best to shield Zach.

He felt the blast lift them both, the fist of the explosion connecting, knocking them out onto the pavement of the parking lot, and a sound like a jet engine hit them just after that.

Zach was no longer in his arms. The light was burning him, and his head felt too heavy to move ever again, and all Cade could think was,
Too slow.

H
elen smiled and hung up the phone. She took the sudden burst of static on the other end as a very good sign.

She felt a glow of pride, but not surprise. Vampire or not, he was an obstacle. Helen took obstacles quite personally.

And, now that she was thinking of it: Griff.

That nimrod Wyman was right about one thing. She would have liked to send a black-ops team after Griffin, but that would have been too much. It might alert the president.

Besides, she didn’t need anything that obvious to end a man’s life. She turned to her computer instead.

Like everything else in her office, the PC was a little more than standard government issue.

She held still while a thin red laser scanned her retina, and entered a series of passwords and keys.

In less time than it took for Windows to boot up, she was deep inside Basketball, the software behind the Total Information Awareness Program.

It never failed to amuse her when Americans got indignant about the idea of someone eavesdropping on their dreary little lives. The fact was, everyone in America was already under surveillance.

Giant computers at Fort Meade scanned billions of phone calls, e-mails and faxes every day, searching for key words like “terrorist,” “bomb” or “Allah.” If one of those messages hit statistically determined criteria, it was forwarded on to a live analyst, who would check it while pulling up the credit report, criminal history and tax records of whoever sent the message.

Most of the time, it didn’t mean dick. Pointless little conversations between people discussing a movie or a TV show, usually.

BASKETBALL was the code name for the program that made it all happen. It was the mother of all search engines; the geeks who built Google would have wept if they could have stolen a look at its algorithms. Entire rooms of computer servers made up its brain. It could find anything, any scrap of data, anywhere in the world, as long as it crossed an electronic line somewhere, at some time.

But what Helen really loved about BASKETBALL wasn’t that it could retrieve any private conversation or database in the country. No, what was amazing about the software was that it could leave evidence behind as well.

Agent William H. Griffin’s private info was locked down better than a civilian’s. He was, after all, a secret agent with classified access, who answered directly to the president.

But in some ways, that just made it easier for Helen. Nobody really expected the government to start spying on itself. The same protocols that opened tax returns and phone bills also let her insert anything she wanted.

She looked over her work, satisfied. The only thing really missing was a motive. Griffin had been a loyal soldier his whole life. Why would he sell out now?

Then she peeked into his medical file and cross-checked his doctor’s billing codes.

Helen smiled when she saw the diagnosis: cancer. Griffin was dying.

Bad news for him. But, really, perfect for her.

F
or a moment, Zach thought he’d been in a plane crash. It would explain a lot: the dust and smoke and noise. And the pain. His chest hurt worst, like someone was stabbing him with an iron poker with every breath.