Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth (16 page)

He gave something between a chuckle and a snort. “So you’re telling me I might be bumping into one of these super humans right here in Los Angeles then? Lots of them look like super humans already, if you ask me…”

“Yeah, I know they do, but for sure some of them are hybrids. One of them might even be working for you… I’m sure I’m working with several of them myself as, apparently, Nikkei is part of their headquarters here in New York.”

A speeded-up version of my visit to the club the first day I was back in New York flashed through my mind. I remembered how surprised I’d been at the sight of all those perfect-looking specimens working here now. And then amazed when I learned just how smart, nice and hard-working all of them were. Well, with the exception of Jonah perhaps. He was the only one who, the more I got to know him, the less pleasant he turned out to be. I had no idea why this was.

“De puta madre…”
Dante muttered under his breath. “So now what?”

“Ian thinks we can stop them from doing the coups against the different governments. I’m not exactly sure how he imagines us doing that, but I’m choosing to believe him. If I don’t, I might as well blow my head off right now the future looks so bleak.”

“You can say that again. So you think these Ad…
Adele
people know about you guys then? Both of you, I mean?”

“Adler, not Adele. Yeah, probably. Ian thinks they didn’t realize who I really was when I first came to work at the club, but then somehow figured it out. Pretty quickly too.” I reminded Dante about Felix Bose and how he had attacked me in the park. Ian and I had yet to find out more about Bose, but I thought it was fair to say that he must have been sent by Adler and their cohorts to try to take me out early. I told Dante this.

“At some point, it seems they stopped wanting to see us dead, though,” I finished. “Or me, at least. So far, they haven’t really made any active attempts to take out Ian. Neither he nor I can figure out why this is.” I wanted to tell Dante that we could only hope it wasn’t because they knew any attempts on our part to stop their plans were futile. No point in making this seem any worse than it already was. Besides, I didn’t believe this was the case anyway.

Don’t want to believe,
a small voice in my head nagged.

“And then you got those threatening texts,” Dante said, interrupting my thoughts. “The ones from a Skype account that only turned out to be routed via Ian’s computer. You think they might be behind those, too?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

How could I ever forget about those texts and how scared I’d been of Ian? Ian had been spot-on when he’d claimed that I would have tried to kill him had I not discovered the nasty texts had only been routed via his computer. The mere thought of what I might have done had there been even more “evidence” against Ian made goosebumps appear all over my body and I was suddenly freezing.
Thank God
for George’s superb intervention there…

“Remember how we used to think Ian was the person behind those texts?” Dante asked, his soothing voice exactly what I needed to hear to feel better right now. “How we were so sure he was a psycho?”

“Yeah, I
definitely
remember that,” I said, wondering if Dante somehow had been able to sense what I’d been thinking right then. “I remember it way too clearly.”

“And then you thought it was that investment banker who used to be buddies with Cardoza. Jose and I had an awesome time down in Texas looking for connections to that
hijo de puta.”

There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm in Dante’s words, even though I so deserved it for having sent him and Jose down on wild-goose chases. But unlike Ian, acerbity had never been something Dante seemed capable of. He was a straight-shooter with the warmest, biggest of hearts, Latin all the way to the bone. It had always amazed me how a man like that had been able to survive ten years as a gangbanger, an environment in which you had to be ruthless to survive. Somehow, Dante had managed, though.

Still, I said, “I know, I’m so sorry I sent you guys down there, wasting your time.”

“No worries,
querida.
Honestly, we had fun. And Ricki didn’t miss me anyway. All she has time for these days is Enrique.”

Enrique was their now seven-month old son. A pang of longing went through my chest as I pictured the little boy’s adorable face. I was his godmother and was rather attached to the little thing. But there was no time to talk about how much I missed my godson, so I said, “I guess that’s good ’cause I’m pretty sure we could use your help soon again. And Jose’s.”

“Got it,” Dante said, “Well, you just let me know. Anything you need, we’re there for you guys.”

“Good to know.” I was about to tell him that I had to go—it was late—then remembered how close Dante was with his wife, who was also my friend. She was a wonderful person, but she had a big mouth. For now, the fewer people who knew about what Adler was up to and how we were trying to stop them, the better. I also didn’t want to worry Ricki unnecessarily.

“Hey,” I said. “Please don’t tell Ricki about any of this. Until you really have to.”

“
Chica,
you think I’m crazy? Then everyone and their mother would know about it. Don’t worry, I want us to at least have a fighting chance to stop these bastards.”

I giggled, relieved that I didn’t have to explain exactly why it was paramount that Dante kept his mouth shut. We exchanged a few more words, then hung up.

I thought briefly about contacting Captain Brady, but decided to leave it for later. I honestly wasn’t sure his heart would be able to handle hearing all that I had just told Dante. It wouldn’t be the first time the man had had a heart attack. Plus, I soon realized, I would have a much harder time trying to convince Brady that what I was telling him was really the truth. I sighed as I thought about that he might in fact not buy it at all, no matter how much he respected me as a detective. He might think I had snapped from all the sorrow Nick’s death had caused me. It wasn’t a farfetched assumption; what I had just spent an hour telling Dante was after all not an easy story to buy.

I leaned against the back of my couch and thought of Nick then.

The usual pain I felt whenever my thoughts went to him was not nearly as strong as usual, barely there at all. I didn’t even feel like crying.

Well,
I thought.
It isn’t strange. Compared to what I’m now facing and all that I’ve been through lately, it’s amazing I can feel anything at all.

Then I remembered that Brady had emailed me a couple of days ago, informing me that they had arrested two suspects that he himself was going to cross-examine later that same day. He had also told me he would get back to me as soon as he had done so. I had been so caught up in Emma’s suicide followed by her letter, and then accepting what Ian had been trying to tell me forever that I’d forgotten all about Brady’s email. I hadn’t even responded to it.

Had he sent me another one that I’d missed in the midst of everything, one in which he gave me a rundown of the cross-examination?

I walked over to the desk where I kept my laptop, preferring to check my email there instead of on my smartphone. There was no additional email from my captain in my inbox.

I chewed on the inside of my lip, wondering how come I hadn’t heard from him again. Hadn’t he done the cross in the end? I shot him a quick email to ask him what was going on with the two suspects just in case his follow-up email to me on the matter had somehow gotten lost in cyberspace.

Unlikely, but still possible.

Staring at my computer, I waited for him to get back to me while at the same time thinking about whether I should contact George. I soon decided against it, even though I was fairly sure George would accept the truth a lot quicker than my captain would, even quicker than Dante had. Even so, it would take some work to explain everything and I was too tired to talk on the phone was George to pick up.

It was better that I told him about it when Ian and I had a better formulated plan about how we were going to go about this situation. At the moment, everything was continuing as normal for both of us, with the exception that I was no longer focusing on trying to find my husband’s killers. Unless it turned out that Brady had found the right guys, Ian had to be correct in claiming that The Adler Group had just staged Nick’s death to send everyone looking in the wrong direction.

I yawned, stretching my arms over my head. I should go to bed instead of willing my laptop to produce a response email from Brady.

Now, more than ever, did I need to be rested and focused when I went to work. All the time, really.

The stakes had suddenly gotten a lot, lot higher—the world as we knew it really did hinge upon my and Ian’s shoulders.

***

Ian and I met for a session the following day at noon. We would use it to begin strategizing our seemingly insurmountable quest.

After going to bed and sleeping poorly all night, I felt even less convinced we stood a chance against this evil, worldwide movement. How could we ever stop them? According to Ian’s estimations, there were likely thousands of super humans in different countries, many of them killer hybrids specifically designed to destroy as many people as possible in a short amount of time and who were themselves hard to kill. We didn’t even know exactly what kind of special powers these hybrids possessed, but based on what Ian had learned so far, they were surely not only faster, stronger and smarter than us regular humans, but might be able to fly and climb buildings like Spider-Man. God only knew what else they could do. As if that wasn’t enough, there was all the political muscle in every major country to consider, powerful individuals who knew exactly where to apply the deadliest strikes, that was assisting Adler to realize their vision. The worst part might be that it was so hard to tell who was in on it, and who was not.

But as disillusioned as I felt about it, I knew we had to at least try to stop them. It was either that or we might as well do what Emma had done—check out. Now I could definitely relate to the despair she must have gone through that drove her to kill herself.

To be absolutely sure no one could overhear us, Ian and I went out to run on the rubber track that wrapped around the huge club.

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” I said as we began jogging, “I can’t see how we could ever stop this from happening. It’s too big. They’re too powerful.”

“I can see how you feel that way, and I’m sorry if I made it seem so hopeless. It isn’t. We’ll find a way. We have to. Remember, we have a little more than six months before the coups will take place. And I really don’t think they know I’ve found out about how they’re intending to do this so soon. That’s a huge advantage.”

“Let’s hope they haven’t. Let’s also hope they don’t change their minds about keeping us alive until then.”

Ian sighed. “Yes, you’re right about that. But since there’s nothing we can do about that, we just have to keep going like they won’t.” He nudged me with his elbow. “Cheer up, soldier. It’s not over until it’s over. What happened? I thought you were a fighter.”

I frowned at him, even though he was right in calling me out. “I
am
a fighter. But I’m also realistic—it’s not looking good. Anyway, what do you propose our first step should be?”

“We’ll go straight for the jugular of course.”

I hiked a brow at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you telling me you know what their weak spot is and haven’t told me about it yet?”

“Not exactly. What I meant is that we need to find out where their leader, Mr. Stenger, lives. I’ve been trying to find him for a while without success. He’s a very, very secretive man. When we know where to find him, we’ll make him tell his closest men that plans have changed. We’ll make him deactivate the chips in the killer hybrids because he’s had a change of heart.”

“Huh?” I turned my head to stare at Ian. “Are you kidding me? You really think it’s just a matter of telling this psychopath that he’s gotta stop all his crazy shit? Pardon me for poking a hole in your great plan here, but I don’t think it’s gonna work. Why don’t we just find a way to control those chips on our own? Intercept their networks and make the hybrids work for us.”

“I’m of course working on that, but we can’t count on me being able to figure out how to do that in time. So we have to try to find Mr. Stenger and make him change his mind about the coups somehow, then go from there. I’ve been looking for him since the day after the luncheon at the Pavillion when I first heard of him. I don’t even know what he looks like. I’m assuming he must be quite old, though, considering how long they’ve been at this.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”

“Just to be clear, I don’t think for a second that, when we do find him—because we will find him one way or another—that it’ll be a piece of cake to make him end his world vision. But we need to at least try. Because, like you just said, they’re too many, too well-organized and too powerful. To really end this once and for all, we’ve got to cut the head off the snake. And I’m thinking he is it.”

I didn’t say anything, just jogged next to Ian in silence for a couple of minutes, mulling over his words. It didn’t take long until I had decided that he made a very good point—we had to try every approach to end this, even ones that appeared futile. Maybe we
could
make the elusive Mr. Stenger change his mind somehow. That is, if we could find him. While Ian worked on cracking their security, we might as well try looking for him. If Mr. Stenger refused, maybe we could at least stop him from sending orders to the killer hybrids. What else could we do? Trying to mobilize the rest of the world against these maniacs was going to be difficult. After those articles in the national press, who would take Ian seriously? That meant I’d be the one who’d have to convince everyone, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to convince my own captain even. When Brady found out that I’d lied to him about my whereabouts all this time, he’d not only be disappointed with me, but would surely also think that grief had made me snap. It had taken Ian months to finally get me on board—as well as Emma’s letter—so I couldn’t count on, or even blame Brady, if he didn’t buy what I told him. Before I’d even try to tell my captain, we’d need to gather some more tangible evidence that I could present to him. I also wanted to see what had happened with the two suspects he’d emailed me about. He had yet to get back to me about that. Finally, even if I did get Brady to take me seriously, we still needed to consider that, in the process of convincing the rest of the world, we would surely telegraph to Adler that we were trying to stop them. Did we really want to be that open about it? I didn’t think so.