“Who were the men helping?” Sean asked.
She blinked. “Does it matter?”
“They were … unexpected. Let’s just say no one thought we would have casualties.”
“Because you underestimated what someone on their own turf can do. They know the country and they’re good in the woods. The best.” She let her admiration show. It was genuine and he would recognize that.
“Again, who are they?”
“If I gave you that information, you’d have two of your soldiers round up someone they love and hold a gun to their head so they’ll leave you alone. You aren’t innocent, Sean. I overhead that some old man was killed just because you wanted to use his property. And then there’s kidnapping.”
“I’m sorry you had to hear that. Yes, some hard decisions are necessary for the protection of my men. I have to put them first. Just as we made the decision to acquire you. It was put to a vote, but ultimately, I had to agree and plan the mission. You are very good in the woods yourself.”
Again, Jonquille felt his respect for her. She pushed down the part where he had to make hard decisions. She didn’t want to think too much about what that meant to the people he decided to kill. “Where are you taking me if not to Whitney’s? More experiments?”
He looked genuinely shocked. “Is that what you think? No. Absolutely not. We need your help. You won’t be hurt. I give you my word as an officer in the Air Force.”
She tapped very gently, using the lightning sequence to give Rubin Sean’s name and rank in the Air Force. He appeared to think he was acting on active duty.
“Are you under orders?”
Sean looked around at the others and then slowly shook his head. “No, we took our leave at the same time and only have a short window to get this done.”
“If you would tell me, I might be able to determine whether or not I can help.”
“We know you can,” Sean said, his voice filled with conviction. “It’s a matter of whether you will agree to or not.”
“Why make it a huge mystery?” she challenged.
“Because we sound like we’re nutty if we talk about it. It’s easier to show you. I’m telling you we don’t want you hurt in any way. We aren’t going to use you for experiments. We aren’t going to turn you over to Whitney whether you help or not. He isn’t a part of this.”
“And the person who enhanced you?”
Sean rubbed his chest as if it ached. “Dr. Oliver Chandler was hired by Whitney to think up futuristic weapons. Believe me, he’s very good at it. Whitney and he were talking about harnessing lightning, and Whitney showed Chandler some of the experiments the doc had tried using you. Chandler was intrigued and began to obsess over developing a lightning weapon. At the same time, he noticed the soldiers Whitney surrounded himself with.”
“Those are as much his failed experiments as the little girls he claims are failures,” Jonquille said. “Why would your boss be so enamored with those soldiers?”
“Whitney didn’t stop there. He showed Chandler the experiments he had done with you girls. Then the soldiers failing psych tests, that was to show him the importance of getting the best to complete the experiments. And then he had a few descriptions of a team he called the GhostWalkers.
“Chandler went back to his lab and he began to obsess over wanting his own elite soldiers. We’d been with him awhile, guarding him. He’s a brilliant man. His work goes to the Department of Defense to protect our soldiers.”
“All of it? Does everything go there, or does he sell some of his ideas and fancy weapons to foreign countries, Sean?” Jonquille asked softly.
Sean shook his head. “I don’t know that answer anymore. I can tell you that I would have bet my last dollar that he was a patriot and would never do something like that a couple of years ago, but lately … Suddenly, people aren’t human beings to him. Not even us, and we’ve been with him almost from the start.”
Jonquille could hear the truth in his voice. Whatever agenda he had for her, this was clearly the truth and he felt very real sorrow, mixed with anger, when he told her. She knew and understood feelings of betrayal. She took a careful look around from under her lashes, keeping her head straight, seemingly looking at Sean. The others were watching her closely, trying to interpret how she was taking the information Sean was giving her.
“He wanted his own supersoldiers,” she prompted.
Sean nodded. “Exactly, but not flawed the way Whitney’s are. He wanted them superior to anything on the planet, like the GhostWalkers. He wanted better than the GhostWalkers. He began doing research into who was doing work on genetics. What kinds of work and how advanced they were. He found a team he thought was willing to do what he wanted and brought them to the States to his lab. They did the first round of operations and then flew home thinking they had all the information in their briefcases. The plane blew up and all the information was mysteriously lost.”
“Of course it was,” Jonquille said in disgust.
“We weren’t all perfect. That made him crazy. He wanted perfection. And he wanted psychically enhanced soldiers as well. He went for a second round of soldiers, and I’m not certain he was any happier. Now he’s even more obsessed.”
“I can’t possibly help with either one.”
Sean sat there for a long time just looking at her. “No, but you’ve been doing research into psychic healing. Abel, one of my men, used the computer after you. It was locked, of course, and password protected, but he found some way to duplicate or mirror what you were doing. We thought you were a spy, actually. Imagine our surprise when you turned out to be anything but.”
Jonquille turned to look at Abel, their computer genius. He looked a little guilty, but gave her a salute. A mosquito bit her neck and she smacked it with the palm of her hand loud enough for the others to react. She gave them a little girlie smile. “I always get a reaction to bug bites. Not a big one, but enough to drive me crazy with itching.
“Yes, I was researching healing as a natural form. Here, in the Appalachian Mountains, there are still some people who are suspicious of medical practices and outsiders. I have a small gift for healing. I know people don’t believe in that, so go ahead and sneer if you want, but I was hoping to learn more about how to use it.”
She kept her voice low and even to cover the lie. She felt bad lying to him—almost. She had no way of helping these people. And they’d kidnapped her.
Sean shook his head. “I read every single article you read. We went over and over the links you followed. We could almost feel your frustration when you ran into dead ends. You were looking for something besides the ability for natural healing.”
The little lightning flicks hit her again. She rubbed her temples. Rubin was seriously upset now that he knew who had kidnapped her. He wanted her to tell Sean who he was going to be dealing with.
She tapped out a big fat no. Rubin’s protection was in the fact that Sean was unaware of who Rubin was.
Rubin came right back at her. If she didn’t drop the bomb, he would do so himself—by contacting her telepathically so those listening in would hear.
Jonquille closed her eyes for a moment, feeling as if she were being forced to give Rubin up.