Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

Weariness swept over me in waves. Despite the exhaustion, however, the last thing I wanted to do was go to sleep. Sleep meant dreams, possibly nightmares. Worse, it might mean waking up back in that cell and discovering this was the dream.

There was a ribbon of light beginning to appear on the horizon, splintering the darkness into something that looked more like navy velvet. The sunrise was on my right, so we had to be driving north. I wasn’t even sure what state we were in.

When we changed lanes and began to slow, I shifted in my seat. “Where?—”

“Picking up McQuade,” Remy said. “He had to make sure no one was following him.”

Relief spilled into my veins like a plunge into icy water. I hadn’t wanted to ask. We’d left him behind and then the hospital and my confession…

Then we cruised into what looked like a rest area along the highway. One of the signs indicated we were in Texas. Well, that was something. McQuade made his way from the direction of the restrooms.

Despite wearing a cowboy hat, there was no mistaking the dark scruff on his face or the length of hair he wore loose now. For all his military background, he never went with a regulation haircut. Not that I could fault him, there was something about taking your life back—one piece at a time that I recognized.

More, I’d done some of it myself. Only in my case, it wasn’t about reclaiming a life but building a whole new one. I sighed as he dropped his bag into the trunk then slid into the backseat with me.

There were traces of dirt on his face. He smelled faintly of gun oil, graphite, and something earthier. The expression he wore lightened some as he gave me a once over.

“Sugar Bear.”

That name. An involuntary laugh escaped me and I shook my head. “That name is not going to stick.”

“You say potato,” he murmured, then winked. “How you feeling?”

“Sore, but I have antibiotics, pain meds, and I’m a little lighter on the metal components.”

The neutrality in his expression turned tense as he flicked a look to the front seat. We were already on the move again.

“A second tracker.”

A second…

“The first was just under the curve of your sweet ass,” Remy said by way of explanation. “We removed it on our way away from the facility. I scanned you. Not sure why it didn’t detect the second tracker.”

“Could have been inactive,” Locke said with a half-shrug. “But we did full body images. Active or not, we would have seen any others they may have inserted into you.”

Inserted.

Tagged with trackers like I was an animal.

Bastards.

“Thank you,” I murmured. “Thank you for getting both of them out.” With a glance at McQuade, I summoned another smile. “Thank you for covering our backs so we could get away.”

“Anytime,” he said, rolling his head from side to side. “It was fun. Though, we need real food soon. And a gallon of coffee.”

I sympathized.

“We’re going to stop somewhere after the state line,” Remy said. “Can you wait?”

Locke tossed back a protein bar that McQuade caught easily.

“Yep.” He glanced from the snack to me.

“I’m good,” I told him. “I ate one and they’re—very dry.”

He nodded once. “We’ll find real food soon.”

Neither Remy nor Locke told McQuade what I’d said, nor did they prompt me to continue. They were being very careful with me.

As much as I appreciated it, they were all still taking risks for me.

“I was just telling them about how this all began…”

While McQuade didn’t fixate or stare, I was very aware of his attention as I brought him up to date with what I’d already shared. Weird, I hadn’t vocalized any of it altogether. Not once in the five years since I erased myself.

I’d kept my secrets even from myself.

Here I was telling the story twice in a matter of hours. Remarkable or not, it was something he needed to know.

“So, you think they worked for the same department you did?” McQuade frowned.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you exactly what I took, the information was vast. There are a lot of people who would do anything to get it back. The reasons I cleared out those caches hasn’t changed. They were not using it to prevent disasters or incidents, but to control when they happened and sometimes even to trigger them.”

“So, who do you think your captors were? If the people in your department were information hacks and operators, would they be capable of a black bag job and interrogation?”

“I don’t think so.” Then again, what did I know. “It was all highly compartmentalized and I gave up wishful thinking a long time ago.”

“Not government,” McQuade said, almost too fast then scowled.

“Maybe,” Locke retorted. “Could be black ops, CIA isn’t supposed to operate here but it could be Homeland. Since you took it from ‘them’.”

Them. “The department I worked wasn’t likely sanctioned even if it was linked. Too much of what we were doing and taking…”

No, there would be no Congressional oversight that would let that go.

“Then that makes the people you worked for even more suspicious,” Remy said. “They have no reasons to pull their punches. Whatever you took, they want back. How long have you been out?”

“Five years.”

Years of hiding from my own shadow, locked away in my very comfortable, well-appointed prison where I could do the best I could while never stepping a foot outside my door.

“That’s a long time to wait,” McQuade said slowly. “What brought them out now? Or were they hunting you all along?”

“I don’t know, I don’t even know how they tracked me this time. I’ve always been careful. I don’t use video. I don’t post as me. I haven’t even said my name in years before today.” Monitoring existed everywhere. From cameras at the grocery store watching you do self-checkout, to cameras observing you at ATMs, crossing streets, because security cameras were everywhere.

The U.S. didn’t quite have the CCTV coverage of some nations, but if you knew how to get into the private networks—we had almost as much coverage.

“The first couple of days I was in the cell, I kept hoping someone would slip and tell me how they found me. They didn’t—just kept asking me where it was.” When asking didn’t work, they went for torture.

“You said you killed the worm that stole it,” Remy repeated my earlier statement.

“I did. They can’t get it without me. No one can. It’s always moving, it’s stored across a hundred different servers. It will never have one port or home or even a dedicated drive. It’s all garbage without a decryption key.”

If I’d died, then the information died with me. Maybe I couldn’t survive their assaults in the long run. I accepted that might be my fate.

“But you can get to it,” Remy said. “They have to know that.”

Or they would have already tried to reclaim it all themselves. “I should have just destroyed it.” I’d thought about it. If I destroyed it entirely then the risk was gone along with the exposure. But it also meant the people behind it all may never face any kind of punishment. “But… it would let too many off the hook. So, I made it inaccessible.”

“You’re the key,” Locke said with a sigh and McQuade’s expression darkened even further.

“That means they have nothing to lose in their efforts to get it back. They have to have you.” He shook his head, admiration wound through his voice. “You really are a bad bitch, Sugar Bear.”

I refused to get used to that nickname, no matter how much affection he punched it up with. “Why?”

“Cause they wanted to break you and they didn’t”

No, but I’d been close so many times.

“The question is how do we handle this?” Remy had been circumspect in his comments since I began explaining everything. It was as though he needed to absorb all the data one part at a time. Now, he was processing it.

“We need to eliminate the threats,” McQuade said. “All of them.”

“We need to secure Patch while we do it.” Locke’s expression had taken on a narrow-eyed, focused look I recognized.

“To do all of that,” Remy said, “we need a plan that gets us access, identifies all the players, and lets us build the right approach. Some of it we can steal. Some of them will need to be scratched off the board entirely. That will take time, resources, and research.”

That pulled all of their attention in my direction. McQuade stared at me steadily, Locke twisted in his seat, but Remy just lifted his chin as though he flicked a look at the rearview mirror.

“You’re going to need an operator.”

They needed me.

“You up for it, Sugar Bear?”

I leaned my head back against the seat.

“I have to be,” I said quietly. “If you are going to fight this war for me, you are not doing it without me.”

I was their operator dammit.

“You need to sleep,” McQuade said and he lifted his arm. “We’re going to be on the road for a while yet. This doesn’t work if you don’t heal.” The invitation was right there.

I should refuse. I should keep my distance. There were a lot of “shoulds” I could list. I chose none of those. Instead, I just eased over and curled up next to him and when he draped the arm around me, I closed my eyes.

Warmth wrapped me up tight, but it was more than body heat and the smell of pine, smoke, and gunpowder. It was three men who walked right into the unknown to get me free, and who kept standing between me and danger.

It was the fact someone was holding me. Human contact. More—friendly human contact.

Who knew how long it would last?

My eyes grew heavy.

“Sleep, Sugar Bear,” McQuade said. The roughness in his voice every bit as soothing as Locke’s sly sass and Remy’s precise intonations given his accent.

Sleep should have been impossible, but it rushed up to meet me, bundling me up as gently as McQuade did with the blanket.

“We need to talk,” Locke said.

“We will,” McQuade answered. “Let’s get her to sleep first.”

“Agreed.”

They needed to talk without me? A yawn stretched my jaw. I really needed to object but I really wanted the security of sleeping without fear for a little while.

Just a little while.