The Drafter (45 page)

“I'm trying to help you,” he said, sounding peeved, and she cocked her head when Jack cleared his throat in rebuke. “Okay, I'm trying to find out how far the corruption goes in Opti,” Silas amended, neck reddening. “But I'm trying to help you, too.”

“Opti isn't corrupt,” she protested hotly, but doubt took her when Jack flicked his suit jacket aside and resettled himself on the card table. He was dressed better than Allen ever was, attractive with just the right amount of stubble and charm.
The perfect mistake . . .

“Jack was your anchor until almost two months ago,” he said. “You found out he'd been taking you on non-Opti tasks, then traded your memory of it for the chance to kill him.”

Peri's eyes slid to Jack—who grinned at her like an idiot—then back to Silas. It sounded like something she might do.

“
This
Jack, the one here, is a hallucination. One I designed to keep you from going into overdraft when you tried to remember it.”

“Liar!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn't kill my own anchor.” But she had only Bill's and Allen's word that Allen had been her anchor the last three years, and doubt began to gnaw at her.
Shit. Who the hell am I?

“You might if you found out he was working for Bill, not Opti,” Silas said, looking toward the dented doors when a car horn blew. “They're both corrupt, and I'm not so sure about Allen anymore, either.”

“So Allen is corrupt. I bet you didn't push him over my balcony, either?” She had meant it to be flip, but the man's entire expression became relieved.

“Exactly,” he breathed, and her eyes flicked to the ladder and her gun still on it. “I was never in your apartment. At least, not that night.”

“I'm not corrupt,” Peri said hotly. “And neither is Allen.”

“And yet you're both here killing a man for your own revenge,” Silas said, and Peri's teeth clenched, the doubt becoming more sure. “I know your rules,” Silas continued. “I know this isn't you. They implanted the suggestion for you to get rid of me. If you do it, it will reinforce their lies. Stay here when we leave. Opti will show up. I promise it. They want you to kill me.”

“You can't give a drafter a false memory,” she said, eyes going to the exit when Howard pushed the auditorium door open.

“Silas?” Howard looked worried. “We've got three cars with lights on the expressway.”

“You can,” Silas said, and Howard ducked back out. “That's why I quit Opti. But Jack is my idea, too. He's your intuition. Listen to him.”

A hallucination?
Peri looked at Jack, and he stared back, her uncertainty growing.

Grimacing, Silas pulled a creased photo from his pocket and set it on the ladder beside the gun. “Last February, you and I brought back a memory of Jack that I wasn't privy to. I lifted this from Allen before they torched your apartment at Lloyd Park, and I think this is what you remembered. I shouldn't have left you that night. I'm sorry. I thought the alliance would help if I could just talk to them. It was a mistake.”

Peri blinked.
He should have been there with me?
But then her focus blurred.
Opti torched my apartment?
She hadn't moved because of a fire; she'd moved to get away from the memory of Allen being thrown off the balcony after going through the . . . bulletproof . . . window.
How can he go through a window that can't break?

“Peri,” Silas said, jerking her back to reality. “I need you to find a chip Jack hid. It's a list of Bill's corrupt drafters, and if you can get it to me, I can get you out. You'll be safe. The alliance needs a reason to trust you.”

Breathless, Peri glanced at the picture, inching forward when Silas took the Glock and backed up. It was a photo of her and . . . “That's
you,” she said, looking at Jack, and he winced, nodding. “That's you and me—”

“In the outback, last New Year's,” Jack finished, and her face went cold.

“My God. Who are you?” she said, staring at him, and he shrugged, bewildered.

“I don't know. But this guy trusts you, and Allen doesn't.”

Vertigo took her as she realized it was true. “Hold still,” she said, cautiously reaching out to Jack, then staggering when her hand passed through him. Heat flashed through her, and she felt unreal. “Shit, shit, shit . . . ,” she mumbled, backing up with her hand gripping her pendant pen. “You're not real, and I'm going crazy.”

“No. I told you, you're becoming sane,” Silas said, and she stood there, shocked when he tossed the Glock to her and it hit her palm with a soft and certain thump.

“Oh, man . . . I'm a hallucination?” Jack put a dramatic hand to his chest. “This is very bad for my asthma.”

Peri's heart pounded. She'd said that herself a hundred times. It meant she'd forgotten something, something important.

“Here's my number.” Silas grabbed her hand and wrote it scrawling on her palm, ignoring the weapon in her other hand. “Find that list and I can get you out. If we can prove Opti is corrupt, it's all over. Isn't that what you want? For it to be over?”

He jumped from the stage, turning to look up at her. “Jack is your intuition, Peri. Trust him as you would trust yourself. He only knows what you do or suspect. He's not real.”

Peri looked at Jack, and the man winced. “He's right. But that's okay, isn't it?”

“Oh, and in case you're wondering, you didn't draft.” Silas turned and ran, his steps loud in the echoing space until the door squeaked shut. Peri took a shaky breath. Jack was looking at the picture, and she inched forward, not sure how to talk to a hallucination, especially one of a man she'd killed. “How did he know I was worried about drafting?” Peri wondered out loud.

“My guess is he's an anchor,” Jack said.

She closed her hand to hide the number. Confused, Peri picked up the picture. She and Jack were standing before a fire gone to coals. She didn't remember it, but she felt centered as she looked at their tired, dirty, smiling faces. “This is not right,” she whispered.

“You're telling me, babe.”

They both looked to the exit at the unmistakable sound of cars screeching to a halt outside. She jumped, stuffing the photo down her shirt when the thunderous boom of the outer doors being flung open echoed.

“Peri?” came Bill's bellow over the calls of Opti forces.

“Back here,” she whispered, wide eyes looking at the ink on her hand as if it were blood. “Here!” she called out louder, arms going up and dangling her Glock from a finger when a dozen Opti agents boiled into the auditorium through all three doors, screaming at her not to move. “It's just me,” she griped as they swarmed over the space and then moved to the unseen back. The three remaining with her took the pistol and screamed at her some more. She ignored them, relieved when Bill strode in and told them in a very loud voice to back off.

“Peri!” the large man called as he strode onto the stage. “I knew it. I knew it! I never should have okayed you. Was this Allen's idea? Was it?”

Peri thought the real question was how Opti had known they were at Eastown. She took a breath to tell him what had happened, that the alliance had been here and claimed that he was corrupt and that he had filled her head with lies.

But then she fisted her hand, hiding the number. If Silas was lying, keeping silent would hurt no one. She thought it telling that she'd come here to kill Silas, but now . . . the feeling was utterly gone.

“Go ahead and put me in the hole, but yes!” she shouted. “Allen and I were going to off him, since no one at Opti
cares
! You got a problem with that,
fat boy
?”

Bill scowled when someone snickered and walked quickly away. “Did you get him?”

“No.” Arms over her chest to hide the picture, Peri cocked her hip to keep her legs from trembling. “Allen's recon sucked. Denier's ride came back and surprised us. Has Allen always been this inept, or did Silas fracture his thinking bone, too?”

Bill laughed, and Peri stiffened when he put an arm around her shoulders and led her down the stage's stairs. “You are grounded, young lady,” he said as they trekked up the incline and out to the lobby, bright with flashlights. “No California coastline for you. I want you back in Opti tonight. Bring your toothbrush.”

“Bill,” she protested, grimacing as Allen was toted out between two Opti agents. “I don't need a full workup. I'll go in tomorrow morning. Promise.”

Bill drew her to a stop just outside. Black Opti cars lined the street, their flashing lights and headlamps making an unreal glare. Agents rushed about to justify their presence, and Bill bodily shifted her so the light fell on her face. “You'll stay at Allen's?” he asked.

“Yes, I'll stay the night at Allen's,” she said, temper bad as she stomped to the nearest car and got in the front seat, waiting for someone else to drive her. She didn't know what to believe, but there was one thing that was irrefutable. Jack had been dogging her steps the last five minutes, and Bill hadn't commented on him even once. Either she was crazy, or Silas was telling her the truth. That the truth meant she was crazy didn't make her feel any better.

The proof that Opti is corrupt is in my old apartment
, she thought. She didn't want it to be true, but she had to find out.

“You can trust me, Peri,” Jack said, and she jumped, swearing when she realized he was sitting in the backseat. “You loved me, once—before you killed me.”

Frowning, she wiped at the ink on her palm to make it less obvious. Fingers curled to hide what was left, she put her fist to her mouth and stared out the window at Detroit's distant lights.
Oh yeah. That helps a lot
.

R
ain made the nearly empty streets shine under the streetlights as Silas waited in the dry shadows behind the massive pylons making up the grocery store's front façade. It was a questionable place to be this late at night amid the gum wrappers and empty nicotine caps, but Allen's car was parked in the nearly empty lot. This was the only place that carried Peri's cat's food that was open after midnight. Silas knew she'd sent Allen out for it twenty minutes ago. It was likely she'd wanted some time alone in the apartment to poke around, and a quest for cat food was an excellent excuse.

He had to talk to Allen, and though jimmying the door of Allen's Lexus and waiting there for him would have been less obtrusive, there was a perverse pleasure in lurking in the shadows. They'd have a quiet chat amid the dirt and cold brick. It would get his attention—make him listen. Peri's mental state was ready to crack, but his terse, one-sided conversation with Fran today had made one thing very clear. Until Allen vouched for her alliance loyalty, she'd be treated as a traitor—and Allen had flatly refused to give it.

Silas fidgeted in a slow anger, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Peri was vulnerable—because of her strength and abilities, not in spite of them. Some of this was his fault, but the Jack hallucination shouldn't have survived Allen's latest mental butchery. After seeing her shout at
empty air and her expression change to horror as she realized her life was a lie, he knew the risk wasn't worth anything they could gain anymore. The task was over. They'd get their intel another way.

Leaning, Silas glanced inside to see Allen flirting with the old woman at the register. Slowly he dropped back, fingering the pistol in his coat pocket. He was having serious doubts about his old friend. Plausible deniability was a sword without a grip, and Silas had never liked the idea of sending her into Opti with no memory of her past, a double sleeper agent. He'd liked it even less when Allen had remained with her at Opti, dedicated to keeping her safe while she found what they needed. It didn't surprise him that Allen had somehow twisted things so that he would be the one to break the truth. Allen was all about the glory of the job, not caring much whom he hurt getting there. It was what had attracted Peri to him in the first place.

Stress pulled his shoulders up as the twin glass doors, their e-boards flickering with the week's specials, slid open. Breath held, Silas strode out of the shadows. “We need to talk.”

Allen's head snapped up, his brief shock making Silas smile. “Jeez, Silas. You gave me a heart attack.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “What are you doing?”

“Avoiding the bugs in your car,” he said, shoving Allen to the shadows and pulling his gun out. “And deciding if I should pop you or not,” he added when Allen's back hit the brick. “She could have killed me!”

Unperturbed, Allen looked past Silas's weapon to the rain-emptied parking lot. “You should get some sleep. You look like hell,” he said, the bag with the cat food crackling in his grip as he started for the lot. Silas shoved him into the shadows again, and Allen looked up, peeved. “If she didn't shoot you the first second she saw you, she wasn't going to,” he said tightly.

Silas's lips twisted. “I'm calling it. You're going to help me pull her out. Now. Tonight.”

Allen's disgust snapped to disbelief. “I
wasn't
going to let her
kill you
!”

“This isn't about her pointing a gun at me,” Silas whispered harshly,
his grip on the Glock tight. “You think she's never done that before? I'm talking about ending this. We can't win, Allen. She's too fractured. Tell Fran she's clear so I can pull her out.”

Allen's eyes slid to the gun. Three feet away, a cold spring rain hissed down, but here it was dry and dusty. “We have a real chance at this.”

“Chance?” Silas gestured wildly. “There was never any
chance
. We're
never
going to get what we sent her here for. She needs to be pulled out. Fixed.”